Mental health, or lack thereof, has been stigmatized for as long as we have known about it.

This makes sense: it is easier for human beings to comprehend and fix the solution to a problem when they can see the something that is wrong, but mental health is not like that. Sure, there might be troubling physical symptoms which appear as one's mental health declines, but like I have written, nine times out of ten, finding a path toward the mental health care you need is a slow, painful, and very personal experience.

All that having been said, in recent years, mental illness has become much more prevalent in the media Americans consume, for better or worse, because despite the best intentions, most attempts by the entertainment industry to shed light on this sensitive subject fail in one way or another.

As a person who struggles with depression and anxiety, I would like to address the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular attempts.

Let us start with the hit song 1-800-273-8255 by Logic, Alessia Cara, and Khalid. I understand that they had only the purest of intentions and acknowledge that this song has helped a lot of people my age cope, and I am genuinely happy for those people, but I was not one of them.

In fact, I would argue that it made me feel worse at my lowest point because intentions are one thing, but some of these lyrics rub me entirely the wrong way.

Allow me to explain.

Who can relate? (Whoo!)

I never had a place to call my own, never had a home... they say every life is precious but nobody care about mine.

It's the lightness in the air when you're there chest to chest with a lover.

I have chosen these three lyrics specifically because of the negative feelings they triggered every time I heard them, and because they made clear to me how generalized the feelings of depression and suicidality in the media.

1. This lyric just makes me angry. If the delivery was different, maybe I'd buy it, but as it stands it sounds just like every other whoop in modern-day rap, and it cheapens the emotions that follow.

2. Most people do not realize that nearly 25% of American adults deal with some form of mental illness in their lifetime, and what's more the U.S. is the country with the most untreated cases of mental illness. That means that for every kid who "never had a home." there are just as many who have a roof over their head and people who care about them. The thing about mental illness is that when you are its clutches, you are convinced that this is the truth, even though for most, it is exactly the opposite

3. People who are in a suicidal state of mind often get there because they are lonely and feel as if they do not deserve love. The worst thing you can tell a person in those circumstances is, "If you had a significant other, you would be happier." That could be the final twist of the knife, both literally and figuratively.

Furthermore, the choruses send entirely the wrong message about what the hotline and its operators are trained to do. They know that just saying they care or that it will get better will not necessarily stop your darkest thoughts. Their main objective is to validate your feelings but also to help you practice mindfulness to stop your thought spiral and most importantly keep you on the line and alive until someone who cares about you is able to get there.

I also get the sense that depression and suicidality are somewhat romanticized in our culture.

Take as an example, in this case, the popular adaptation of Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why on Netflix.

I read the book this was based on, and the very real danger here comes in how the streaming service chose to adapt it and to portray suicide

In the book, Hannah still blames all the people on the tapes for her suicide, but as Clay listens in real time, he highlights each and every chance she was given to ask for help. In the show, however, he listens to the tapes one at a time, and instead of pointing to the holes in her logic, he goes to confront those on the tapes, convinced he is furthering her revenge by being a "righteous" person.

The argument has also been made by some that twenty-one pilots are exacerbating the problem of glamorization, and although I am a big fan of their work, I must say their critics have a point. Honest song-writing really does help a lot of their fanbase, myself included, but to hear the critics tell it, what is honesty without advocacy?

But wait. I hear you saying. All these mistakes are made by all of the media that is daring enough to even attempt to cover mental illness at all.

But that is where you are entirely wrong.

Enter Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the ingenious and diverse dark comedy musical/90's rom-com satire that is the love child of Youtube comedienne extraordinaire Rachel Bloom and her partner in crime, Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh Mckenna. It is also currently the lowest-rated network show on television, to my everlasting chagrin. Don't let the title turn you off, though. Bloom has said many times that the choice of title was very deliberate, and it shows in the final product.

And that's all I'll say about that in the spoiler-free section of this article because it is a singular experience that I would not dare ruin for you. Just go watch it. All three seasons are on Netflix right now.

*** MAJOR SPOILERS for most of the series ahead*** Fairly warned, be thee, says I.

Well, I have finished all three seasons, and Rebecca Bunch is now officially my favorite television character, with all apologies to Leslie Knope, C.J. Cregg and Tyrion Lannister. She is deeply flawed but intensely relatable, and that would be true even if was not dealing with anxiety and depression.

The thing that makes the character of Rebecca Nora Bunch, Esquire most interesting to me is the way we experience her development and growth.

We first meet her as a miserable young woman in New York, and though we know she is severely depressed, we don't even question her decision to follow Josh Chan to West Covina, because in our consumption of culture, we have come to expect this from rom-coms. Girl meets boy, follows boy, woos boy, and is rewarded.

It is only further into her new life in California that we become worried about her and view her as "crazy". Her first few attempts to get Josh's attention are seemingly harmless: he invites her to dinner, she clogs her disposal, they throw a party at her house. Instead of immediately making Valencia the enemy like Paula does, she fosters a friendship with her and helps her buy a yoga studio.

Then she goes on a date with Greg, and it's all downhill from there.

It is a testament to both the writers and Bloom's fantastic acting that through all the underhanded, dangerous and sometimes illegal things she does in her pursuit of Josh, we continue to root for her.

Her failures, her awkward and cringe-worthy moments and her spirals of self-destructive behavior are all made understandable by what we know about her and what we continue to learn about her.

By the same token, her successes are ours too. We celebrate with her as she wins cases, because "crazy" or not, she is a damn good attorney. So it is too when she kisses Josh, first in the courthouse, then at camp, and finally after Valencia breaks up with him. She views him as a prize to be won, a cure-all for her unhappiness, and so we feel the accomplishment she does when they are finally together. It's a fairy-tale happy ending.

When season two starts, the reality sets in and it becomes clear to us the viewer that he is just using Rebecca for her couch and casual sex. We start to wonder what on Earth Rebecca sees in Josh. But she doesn't care. She is more than happy to subsist entirely on his "love kernels".

They eventually break up, and she seems happier, but she can't stay away for long. After they visit her mother in Scarsdale, just as she is about to have a breakthrough with her therapist, Josh proposes and we all scream " NO!!" with Dr. Akopian, which is a feat in of itself. By now we know that a proposal is akin to waving a bag of heroin under a recovering addict's face. She accepts almost catatonic with joy, but we have identified Josh as a huge hurdle standing in the way of her true happiness.

Josh and Rebecca, when first we meet them, are both stuck in their adolescence, romantically at least. The difference between them is that Rebecca recognizes her problems and eventually works on them in Season three, while Josh still hasn't.

After the wedding implodes, Rebecca reaches an all-time low, attempting to overdose on her mother's sleeping pills and barely making it to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. That episode and the one following it made me cry happy and sad tears for Rebecca as well as myself. As I saw her mother realize the depths of her ideations, it made me sick thinking about how my mother had found similar things on my laptop. I was SO happy that she finally got her diagnosis.

But the real gut punch for me came from the conversation she had with Paula earlier in the episode.

Are they mad at me??
I'm so sorry I caused such a scene.
I was out of stories to tell myself it would be ok.
I didn't even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop.

If I had a dollar for every time I'd thought that last thought in my lowest moments a few months ago, I'd be on my way to Paris for free.

I am so glad I found this show when I did, as it helped tremendously with my own recovery. I'm glad that Rebecca, Bloom, and I got the help we needed and are now able to speak honestly about it.

TL;DR: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is covering mental health the way it should be covered in all media: with a careful, caring and delicate hand.