When I was a teenager, I knew less of the nothing than I know now. I was kind of just meandering through the development of an identity. One of my more asinine convictions was that mental health was a thing of myth; it was a sort of imaginary excuse for people that needed to justify inadequacy. I was a cynic when it came to the importance of things I couldn’t see or touch and for a long time I’m sure I made lots of people with real struggles feel like losers.

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The ironic bit of it is, I considered myself this enlightened nomad that wandered around providing answers that only I could come up with. The truth is I was marginally intelligent at best and full of shit (because what teenage boy isn’t full of shit). I remember one biology class, my teacher was teaching the reproductive system. My entire world broke in half when I found out men did not have fallopian tubes. I was that level of stupid and unlearned. 

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Lucky for me I grew up in a world where media is flooded with social satire, and I was able to experience these fictional dilemmas that ultimately mediated my understanding of mental health. As I got older, and consumed more shows like BoJack Horseman, South Park, Rick and Morty , Archer and anime like Clannad, Mirai Nikki, Orange and Death Note, my conceptualization of how the human mind worked changed. It was immediately clear to me that the intricacies and ambivalence of the world around me was much greater than I could have imagined. 

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Understanding life became a perpetual endeavor for me, much like trying to take a dump when you’re constipated.  Eating 24 hot wings always seems like a good idea when you’re eating hot wings, but 8 hours later your stomach and butthole will remind you of the benefit of long term thinking. My subjective reality began to expand, and as it ballooned I started to lose comfort in ignorance. It was always so easy for me to dismiss ‘ignorance’ because I couldn’t frame it within my reality. However, my reality and I would argue everyone else’s, is built upon the finite understanding of the concepts within our existence. Now, before I relentlessly roast a person for their opinion I meaningfully listen to what they have to say.     

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The change in my approach to understanding changed my perspective on the issue of mental health and how people deal with that sort of thing. That was the whole idea behind the “I Punch Faces” shirt, there is an infinite spectrum of reactions to intangible stimuli. Some people will vent in a therapist’s office and someone else might take their anger out on your stupid looking nose. I have learned to not dismiss the legitimacy of good or bad mental health as a cause for actions I do not understand. That’s the meaning of the shirt to me and I hope you guys can find your own meaning too.   

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These days, when someone talks about their struggle with depression or anxiety or suicide, I don’t see a crazy person. I don’t see a failure. I don’t see a coward. I don’t see a loser. I see another human being, with legitimate struggles, navigating feelings they wish they didn’t have to. If you’re a loser, it’s not because you struggle with your mental health…it’s because you put fries in your frosty. You savage. Have some decorum.  

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P.S. No faces were punched in the writing of this post. 

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