Is it just me or does anyone else think we maybe go on about ‘mental health’ just slightly too much?
Even as I write those words I know that (if anyone ever read them) they would give rise to howls of protest. Though I’m far from being the first person to voice such a view, however tentative.
We keep on hearing that there is a ‘stigma’ around mental health, and that it is not something we are ‘supposed’ to talk about. And yet it seems that many people talk about little else. Every time you switch on the TV it’s there – mental health, and how we all need to talk about it more. Because not talking about it, and ‘bottling it up’ only makes things worse.
There is some truth in that – discussing anxieties and getting things off one’s chest to a sympathetic and understanding listener is indeed very therapeutic. ‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved’, and all that. But that’s not quite the same as going on and on about how miserable you are.
Another word we hear a lot of these days is ‘resilience’ – by which is meant a capacity to bounce back from setbacks and shrug off hardships. Doing so is a key part of growing up; yet increasingly we seem to be fostering the opposite of resilience in young people, and almost fetishising self-pity. An anguished, self-absorbed wallowing in gloom seems to be de rigueur for many young people now, and not a day goes by without we are treated to the spectacle of some newly-stricken ‘influencer’ or celebrity emoting about how stressful everything is. Everyone from Prince Harry to J K Rowling, Ryan Reynolds to Adele, has had, or is having, their battle with depression. I really feel for them. It must be terrible waking up in the morning, remembering that you are beautiful, incredibly wealthy, adored by fans and have sackfulls of awards, and thinking, Yes, but isn’t there more to life than this?
Well, yes, there is. But for a lot of people, being highly paid for doing what you love doing would go some way towards putting a smile on their face.
Schopenhauer wrote that One only feels where the shoe pinches. In other words, the rest of you could be fine, but if there’s one thing that isn’t quite right, that’s where the attention goes. And that quite trifling thing can be magnified out of proportion. This is the problem: these pampered scions of the world’s elite have everything, so that any shortcoming is experienced as a terrible lack. They already have so much, but they want more; not necessarily more money or fame, but more something. Maybe just even more attention. As if they haven’t got enough already. They want those of us who don’t live in mansions or palaces, earn just enough to live on and don’t get to go to award ceremonies or travel by private jet, to feel sorry for them.
Well boo hoo.
The mental health craze is even spreading to sports stars now. The incredibly talented gymnast Simone Biles has pulled out of competing in the Olympics because she wants to focus on her mental health. She has been universally praised for this decision, and for all I know it may well be for the best – I wouldn’t wish her or anyone to be unnecessarily stressed-out. I must admit I struggled more with the tennis player Naomi Osaka’s refusal to give press conferences after matches – particularly ones she had lost, on the grounds that she had to preserve her mental health. I always thought talking to the media, who help give you’re the fame and fortune you enjoy, was part of the job. Not a very enjoyable part after you’ve lost, but there used to be something about taking the rough with the smooth. That saying seems to have died a death – as has the expression ‘As mad as a box of frogs’. Which is a shame.
Even hulking, heavily-tattooed rugby player, former England prop Joe Marler, was going on about his mental health the other day. “Everyone expects that because you play rugby for England you must be strong and never experience doubts,” he moaned. Well, no, not exactly. But did you think of Alan Wyn Jones’ mental health when you grabbed his bollocks in the scrum?
Gone are the days when Lord Uxbridge, one of the officers on the Duke of Wellington’s staff apparently cried “By Gods, sir, I’ve lost my leg!” when that member was blown by a French cannonball at the battle of Waterloo. The iron Duke allegedly replied, “By God, sir – so you have.”
That’s what I call resilience.