Is mental illness Blue and Black or White and Gold?

Original Post: 13/03/2015

It has been confirmed that the dress IS blue and black, however due to how the photo was taken, some of us saw white and gold while others saw the original blue and black, and a select few have seen it both ways. Its something to do with how our eyes have adjusted to light, scientific and all that. 

BUT SOPHIE, I hear you cry, WHAT ON EARTH HAS THAT DRESS GOT TO DO WITH DEPRESSION??!!

Challenge accepted, I will now give you 5 ways the dress relates to Mental Illness:

1. We know its blue and black. The dress owners have clearly said it is blue and black and the white and gold was a trick of the picture/light. There’s even the science behind it if you google it. 

Now I am someone that has seen it both ways, and each time I am completely baffled as to how I ever saw it the other way!! Its AMAZING! But no matter how hard some white/gold people try they cannot see it to be blue/black in that picture. To those people it is white/gold.

If you are a white/gold person, can you ever fully 100 percent believe its blue/black?! I mean come on, there’s other pictures showing you that its blue and black, and other people are telling you, but what if it’s just a different dress, or everyone’s making it up?! With your own eyes you are seeing white and gold and you know what you’ve seen, and nothing anyone else can make you think otherwise?  

Hmmmmm. Well, we all know mental illness is there; we’ve heard the testimonies, the stories, people mentioning it, and doctors diagnosing it. But sometimes its realllly hard to see depression when you can’t SEE anything wrong. I know people found it hard understanding how ill my Dad  was when he suffered…even when they knew he was ill, and accepted it. As with many a depression sufferer, he was pretty good at hiding it when he felt he had to and didn’t seem half as bad as when he was at home. Only a select few saw just how bad Dad was suffering, only a few of us saw his blue and black. 

2. We have no control over which way we see it. You can stare at the picture, you can ask it politely, or bribe it with chocolate but I’m afraid that will make no difference. Of course there’s science behind it but that first time you saw the picture you had no clue which way you would see it. 

It doesn’t mean you are a good or better person if you see it blue/black. Or you have TONS more friends if you see white/gold. It has no relevance to intelligence, life experience, right or wrongs. And guess what?! oh you guessed it….nor does Mental illness.

Mental illness doesn’t not discriminate; it effects 1 in 3 people at some point in their lives. I know that statistic makes me want to understand more and learn ways of combating depression!

3. How crazy complex is the mind?! I was in awe when I stumbled across the picture of the dress. Honestly I was stumped. How can someone else see the dress in colours that are completely different to what I see. I was fascinated. The brain, something we completely rely on, trust and does things we aren’t even thinking about. When I see white/gold I KNOW my eyes are lying but that doesn’t change what I see….How awesome is that?!  So if our mind is able to outright process some visual data so dramatically wrong, what other glitches is it capable of?? oh I don’t know… wait, yes i do! MENTAL ILLNESS!   If you find it hard to understand how someones brain can become ill, have a look at that dress and tell yourself that its the opposite colour. Mental illness scrambles the brain and makes it hard to put life in perspective. Makes things we take for granted, like getting out of bed, a near impossible task. When my Dad was at his worse, it even made him believe things happened that didn’t. The mind is a very unknown, unpredictable and hard thing to understand, which is why we need to find out more about our thought processes, and the science behind it and what we can do when it gets ill.

4. How did you know that other people saw the dress differently? Well everyone was talking about it, you couldn’t escape it!

Lets imagine for a second, you saw the picture on its own, no status or  explanation, just the dress. Lets say you saw white/gold. how would you ever know that it was actually blue/ black? Ok, so you find out its actually Blue/Black and you start to panic; am I abnormal? am I wrong? are my eyes broken? Then you start talking to people and lo and behold there are other people that see white/gold too! You research the dress and find out its a difference in how people perceive things, its all scientific and its OK you aren’t broken! Phew, its amazing what talking, researching and sharing can do! (see where i’m going with this?) There is no need to suffer in silence, or think there is something wrong with you, or to think there is something wrong with someone with mental illness. There are so many people who live with depression, and a lot of those people get through it with support. In talking, and understanding we can raise awareness, and let everyone know that blue/black or white/gold we are all humans in this world together! 

5. My final point (Thank goodness Sophie, you were starting to ramble) 

How many people did you ask or talk to about that dress?? In person, on social media, through a status update or a like? Regardless of if you were someone that refused to be apart of the dress bandwagon or couldn’t stop asking people, think about the sheer global scale of communication about the colour of a dress! 

But how often do you ask how someone is? How they really are, not just a hi, alright? In a day how often do you have a real discussion about your feelings, or give support to someone. I’m not saying its easy, I’m also not saying I’m very good at it, but wouldn’t it be amazing if just a smidgen of the effort the world put into discussing that dress was put into being there for another human being. What if  we all spent a little more time trying to brighten someone’s day as fast as we were to be amazed at that dress. Spread some love, understanding, even a smile at a stranger, you never know how much that person might need that smile!

And that, ladies and Gents, is how a you can raise awareness out of a Blue and white..oh i mean a black and gol….OH YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

P.S If you haven’t already, check out this website and maybe even donate to TEAM ROSE, raising money for MIND.

P.S.S of course I am not expert, this is written from my experiences.