Romanticizing some mental disorders, not others

Empathy toward mental disorders is distributed unevenly: depression and anxiety receive understanding because their symptoms are imaginable; autism and personality disorders receive mockery or indifference because they require imagining a different way of processing the world.

## Depression inspires empathy; autism is ridiculed

Depression affects about **280 million** people worldwide, according to the **WHO**. Anxiety affects about 301 million (2019 data). These are staggering figures, but they also feel familiar. Almost anyone can imagine persistent sadness or constant antiestéticar: we've all been through something similar at some point. That's why depression easily inspires empathy.

With autism, the opposite is true. It affects **1 in 100 children** worldwide, according to the same organization. Its central trait is not a recognizable mood, but a different way of processing the world. And that is harder to imagine. There is no prior experience to hold on to. When it isn't understood, autism is ridiculed.

## Help only goes to those we can influence

There is another uncomfortable factor. It is easier to throw ourselves into helping someone we perceive as vulnerable in a way that feels familiar: the teenager with depression. By contrast, antisocial or narcissistic personality disorder arouses suspicion, if not outright mockery.

Empathy stops being a principle and becomes a preference. Help is given only to those we can influence, to those who fit the image we have of a deserving victim. The rest are left out of the share. And those who suffer it notice.

## Autism is not contagious, and it cannot be cured

Autism is not contagious, and it cannot be cured. It is a developmental condition. Those who have it are not sad: they process the world differently. That is why jokes about autistic behaviors are not just a joke. They ridicule a different way of existing.

Empathy that only works with what we already know is not empathy. It is something else. If this issue affects you, talk to a mental health professional.