Drawing Mental Illnesses (TikTok Trend)

Submission 3,704

Part of a series on TikTok. [View Related Entries]

About

Drawing Mental Illnesses is a social media trend where artists draw their interpretation of various mental illnesses and disorders. Artists including Shawn Cee and Toby Allen helped popularize the trend throughout the mid-2010s. The trend became notably popularized on TikTok throughout 2021 and 2022, inspiring viral and ironic versions of the meme where ironic disorders like lactose intolerance and being British are drawn as if they were mental illnesses. While similar in name, the trend does not share the same exploitable format used in the Drawings Made By People With Mental Illness meme.

Origin

Artists have been sharing their artistic interpretations of mental illnesses online numerous times throughout the 2010s. On August 25th, 2015, Bored Panda^[1] published a collection of artwork by illustrator Toby Allen in which he draws mental disorders as monsters, garnering over 784,000 views in seven years (example shown below, left). On October 17th, 2016, Bored Panda^[2] posted a similar collection of artwork by Shawn Cee, garnering over 3.8 million views in six years (shown below, right). On October 24th, 2018, Bored Panda^[3] shared another collection of art like this from Allen.

On September 4th, 2021, TikToker^[4] @thementalproject posted his first video drawing a mental illness, insomnia, garnering over 2.1 million views in a year (shown below).

Spread

The trend spread across TikTok over the following year, inspiring numerous viral examples. On September 19th, 2021, TikToker^[5] @whooarethey posted a video of themself drawing bipolar, garnering over 8.7 million views in a year. On November 10th, Twitter^[6] user @commentsooc posted screenshots of a TikToker who ironically drew asthma as a mental illness, garnering over 260,000 likes and 17,000 retweets in 11 months (shown below).

On December 31st, TIkToker^[7] @drawing_mental_ill drew haphephobia, garnering over 1.4 million views in 10 months (shown below, left). On March 19th, 2022, TikToker^[8] @lin_draws__ posted a video of herself drawing anxiety, garnering over 203,000 views in seven months (shown below, right).

On October 27th, 2022, TikToker^[9] @ellisharshbarger22 posted an ironic version of the trend where she draws lactose intolerance as if it's a mental disorder, garnering over 4 million views in four days (shown below, left). That day, she posted another ironic version to TikTok^[10] where she draws IBS as if a mental disorder, garnering over 4 million views in the same span of time (shown below, right). On October 28th, Twitter^[11] user @oluwatoji posted screenshots of the lactose intolerance video, garnering over 562,000 likes and 66,000 retweets in three days.

Various Examples

Drawings Made By People With Mental Illness

Drawings Made By People With Mental Illness is an exploitable photoshop meme featuring a collection of black and white sketches depicting unsettling figures with a third image added to the lower right corner. Typically the photoshopped image is poorly drawn or funny and often references other memes. The two artists whose drawings are used in the format do not have mental illnesses despite the association with the meme.