On Cheslie Kryst's Suicide & The Societal Masking of Pain
2/6/2022 -- Cheslie Kryst's Suicide, How we Choose to See Pain, TJs vday recs & more
When I first heard the news of former Miss USA, Cheslie Kryst’s suicide I was in bumper to bumper traffic on the 10 west on my way back from therapy. It was one of those overcast, but warm mornings, where the sun is buried beneath thick strips of grey.
I’d been feeling the weight of the world before hearing the news that morning and on many mornings the past few weeks. I’ve been in a wave of grief different than any I’ve felt since my mom passed. The constant anxiety and terror around sickness and death has finally quieted and in its wake is simply apathy.
Numb indifference.
The mornings don’t feel as crisp and full of potential, the nights don’t feel as seductive or alive. Without a sense of urgency constantly tailing behind me, the days often feel monotonous and unexciting.
I think that I have been running from this feeling of apathy for my entire life. Constantly fighting it off by “achieving more” – writing more articles, getting more jobs, running more miles – searching for serotonin at every turn. I’m used to being the ‘successful, peppy, positive, always happy Becca’ that I felt that my family and society expected me to be.
I think that this need to mask our depressed sides is as much a societal issue as it is a personal or familial one. In a capitalistic society, we are so conditioned to believe that our worth and happiness is our achievements. If you make money, have a good job, and other people like you, then you must be happy, right?
This is where the societal shock around Cheslie Kryst comes in. Kryst was a 30 year old black woman with a bachelor’s degree, a law degree, and an MBA. She did pro bono work on a case that ultimately liberated a man from wrongful conviction and life-sentence. She was crowned Miss USA in 2019 and appeared unapologetically on stage with her natural curls. She switched careers into broadcast journalism and won two daytime Emmy awards. In society’s eyes, she was a spectacle of success, and thus an emblem of happiness. So when she took her life, the ultimate statement of pain, society was left in utter shock. How could a woman like that be suffering?
We have been so conditioned to focus on the external that we look past real pain unless it appears in the way that we think it should. Recent trends in deteriorating mental health are glaringly obvious. From 2001 to 2017, suicide death rates for Black American girls ages 13-19 increased by 182%, according to a 2019 study published by the Journal of Community Health. There is no doubt that mental health has been a serious concern since the pandemic for all demographics. Yet we still often don’t see people’s pain when they present in a certain way.
While openness and awareness of mental health have absolutely improved in the past decade, we still have a long way to go. While we preach #selfcare on Instagram and Twitter, there are so many examples of people who have recently been tossed aside or looked down on when they speak publicly about their pain. When Olympian gymnast Simone Biles chose to prioritize her mental health and not compete at the Olympics, many said that she was letting down her country and that she was lazy. This reinforces this problematic capitalistic tendency to value people for what they contribute rather than just for being themselves. When tennis phenom Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open citing her mental health, the world did not accept her pain with open arms. She was transparent about her struggles, and the world tossed her aside.
This pressure to mask our struggles is especially intense for Black women, who are fighting against the double whammy of racial and gendered stereotypes at every turn. Any crack in their facade gives many people a reason to devalue their entire existence.
Rheeda Walker, a Black clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Houston told TIME that “Black women are often expected to operate like unshakable trees planted beside the water, deeply-rooted and able to weather any storm … the way that racism and sexism combine often forces these same women to present themselves publicly as not only unflappable, but capable of superhuman feats. It’s what a society like this one requires of them simply to be regarded as fully human by others.”
Joiner’s theory is a widely cited theory of suicide that identifies three main risk factors for suicide – 1) the sense of not belonging, 2) the belief that you are a burden, and 3) the capacity to overcome the powerful human instinct to survive. For Black people, new research suggests that experience with discrimination is an influential factor in depression and suicide as well.
Of course there are so many tangible bureaucratic factors that we need to change in order for societal mental health to truly improve on a large scale in this country – health care costs, open access to resources, mental health education in schools, and qualified counselors who accept medicare, to name a few, but there is societal initiative we can take on as individuals as well.
The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality – that reflexive, relentless American positivity fueled by capitalism – has become actively harmful when considering mental health. I know I fall into this trap a lot. It is so easy to tell someone that things will get better, to not really hear their pain, but rather toss them optimistic bromides. It is one thing to tell people that “it’s ok not to be ok.” It is an entirely different thing to fully embrace people in their pain and actively show them their inherent worth no matter what. We need to start practicing what we preach.
In a country that confuses external beauty and monetary success with internal happiness, of course we are shocked when someone like Cheslie Kryst takes her life. As terrifying as it is, there is no clear-cut image of what someone seriously struggling might look like. The rise of social media has amplified the contradictions between internal and external happiness. Someone in a crisis could easily be the person who just got a great job, sporting an expensive outfit, surrounded by friends, flashing a dazzling smile in the photo on screen.
It’s like we’ve all been given these goggles that only let us see the surface of things – everything looks shiny and new and “OK.” But with the goggles on for too long, things start to look colorless and blurry – a hazy, half-formed hodgepodge of pixelated fake smiles and plastic masks. Cheslie Kryst’s suicide has made us aware of the goggles we are wearing, aware of the unreality we are experiencing day-to-day with others.
Maybe it’s time we take off the goggles and start to see in harsh, raw, and vibrant color.
Trader Hoes –
SNACK recs this week for your Galentines’ parties!
Dark chocolate mini heart cookies
Media Recs –
This Modern Love Column
My BUST article on the toxic weight loss app Noom and the reality of diet culture
My sister recommends the podcast “The Trojan Horse Affair” – “not what you think”
Happy Feb! See you all next week.
Bex
Amen siSTAR!!