Stop Romanticizing...
Toxic Relationships
Lolita is perhaps the greatest and best-known text of Vladimir Nabokov. The masterpiece has inspired many medias, including movies, different art styles and songs all together. However, people fail to see the true monstrousness that consumes the story that is Lolita. The book is seen to the unknowing as a beautiful love story. Sadly, it is quite the opposite. The author is, in fact, portraying a man who’s desperately clashing against his inner demons, and throughout his wicked days, manages to slither and scheme his path into the life of a sweet 12-year-old girl. The two become dangerously close and his claws frighteningly grasp further into her, managing to escape after he allegedly rapes her.
The media provides daily uploads of texts, images and quotes romanticizing toxic relationships. News feeds are flooded, painting the false image of abuse being normal and necessary in a relationship. Love hurts, they said, but it is not supposed to consume your very essence. Being hit, being bruised and abused, pushed into alcoholic and drug use is not romantic or loving: it is traumatic and unhealthy. Love is living with someone who understands you, someone who sees beyond the words you say and into the meaning they hold. Someone who does not hear, but listens. Someone who does not watch, but sees. Someone who encourages you even when you are at your lowest to get back up and move forward, pushing you into improving yourself day after day. Men and women around the globe are stuck in venomous relationships, struggling each and every single day as if they were bound to a living hell. The sad truth is that they were made to believe that it is normal, and that this was “love”.
The ill-fated genius
“THE SADNESS WILL LAST FOREVER.”
These were the last words that Vincent van Gogh has ever written, the closure phrase he sent to his beloved brother before he set the curtain onto his own life. Although he holds a tragic story, the Dutch painter is now considered as one of the greatest to ever wield a brush; his work is well known across the globe by amateurs, art enthusiasts and fanatics alike, his final words and finale being the most infamous of all. The tremendous popularity the artist gained throughout the years is, in fact due, to the large infatuation he experiences during his torturous life, his battle against depression and sadly, his tragic death. The point is to stop romanticizing and creating a link between depression and creativity.
Van Gogh is amongst the many artists that had to go through difficult and challenging times. Creativity encourages the mind, this tends to make a person more eager for knowledge and analyzing his surroundings, questioning deeper than the average mind, in addition to constantly reliving old memories to capture the exact feeling and emotion felt, a process complex and deep called rumination. Thinking differently can sometimes be labeled as eccentricity, weirdness or simply insanity thus making a gift into a curse, leading to being isolated and seen as “different” which can enhance the chances of falling into depression. The call is becoming louder and louder throughout the days, the syndrome of a cursed boy genius does not exist. Our gifts do not hold curses, we create our own.
Depression
A modern daily routine always includes browsing through the internet and news feeds using various types of apps. Socializing has become an important aspect of our lives, and while the need of socializing grew within the heart of every social app user, the need of attention and praise grew along its side.
Many pages, accounts or forums describe themselves as “depressed”. A decade ago, making such a statement would have been a serious issue and yet now, it is joked about for views and likes. These users use such serious claims without considering the impact it holds on society, to the point where it has now become a necessity to being popular. Self harm and destructive thoughts have become attracting to the juvenile audience, being bipolar became an easy excuse. The manifestations of an inconsiderate society go on and on…
The blame however does not fall on the users alone: the media itself holds a fair share of it. The contradictory calls for talking sessions and therapy alongside screens of depressing backgrounds and stars have led us as a community into having those images uncarved in our minds. The width of affect for such behavior does not fall on the misusing people alone.
Misclaims tend to hurt the true patients and ill more than anyone else. In various cases, people who actually suffered from one of the mentioned states above were thought to be “faking it” in order to get attention or social acceptance. Being depressed is no joking matter, it shouldn’t be a wild card used by each and every individual demanding attention. Being mentally tormented is a serious issue; think twice before claiming to be one of its victims.
Kamélia Bourahla is a 19-year-old Business school student from Algeria. She’s an aspiring writer, having fallen in love with books & arts at a very young age. She is also Unootha’s Art Editor.