What to do if I crash out
We should all have a will. Should we also have a "what to do if I go insane" plan?
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
I’ve been this 🤏 close. —Kate
New on ICYMI: TWO podcasters take on ONE Slate staff writer to debate whether or not Jubilee videos are helping or hurting society:
Head over here to subscribe to ICYMI wherever you listen to podcasts 🫶
There are certain kinds of online behavior that will prompt my friends and I to check in on one another. Posting a front-facing video. Enough Instagram Stories to shrink the top bars to dots—or, just as ominous, a string of days without any Instagram Stories at all.
These red flags don’t necessarily indicate that something is wrong, but they are unusual enough for any of us to prompt a, “You okay, queen?” So looking at Kendra Hilty apparently crashing out in a 20-plus part TikTok series about falling in love with her psychiatrist, I don’t know what’s worse: That her friends aren’t reaching her, or that they aren’t checking in at all.
“Kendra, where are your friends?” creator Tefi Pessoa asks in one video. But it was a comment on that video that really interested me:
A “what to do if I go insane” plan sounds like a joke. But it’s not not something worth considering in a world where mental health symptoms are just as if not more likely to display themselves online as in real life. Our social media profiles are a manifestation of what used to be kept inside. Our interests, moods, and emotions now have a digital trail. How many times have you clocked that a couple from your high school or college were breaking up because of the quotes one of them is sharing on Instagram Stories, or the kinds of posts they’re liking?
Manic episodes, in particular, are very obvious online. I have not suffered from one myself, but friends and acquaintances have, and I have been on the receiving end of delusions voiced through tweets and Instagram stories. It is awful, not just because it’s clear the person is suffering, but also because, unlike 15 years ago, everyone is watching.
