A post published in March 2015 on the Tumblr griffindoreo has been making its way around Facebook this week ever since author David G. McAfee shared it. It responds to a tweet by Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins reading, "people with depression do not need a doctor and a bottle of something that rattles. They need a pair of running shoes and fresh air."
Unfortunately, many people with depression have heard things like this. Those who say them often don't understand that depression is a mental illness, which can be just as serious as a physical illness.
Griffindoreo expresses this with a few very on-point anti-analogies. "People with asthma do not need allergists and emergency inhalers, they need bicycle helmets and fish bowls," the post reads. "People with diabetes do not need an endocrinologist and insulin, they need a fishing rod and a bottle of nail polish."
It sounds completely ridiculous to say these things about physical illnesses, yet we constantly hear them about mental ones. Since mental illnesses are invisible, people don't always get that they're nevertheless real.
Hopkins's tweet isn't the only widely shared declaration that antidepressants are unnecessary. A meme going around earlier this year claimed that the outdoors, not a pill, is an antidepressant. A woman named Jenni Chiu responded to it: "Not all illness can be cured with fresh air and sunshine. Sometimes chemical imbalances in the brain need to be supplemented."
McAffee captioned a screenshot of griffindoreo's Tumblr post similarly: "If you are diagnosed with depression, you probably need more than just fresh air. Depression ≠ I get sad sometimes."