It’s good to talk

A few weeks back, I read a piece which has stayed in my brain. The headline was “We have reached peak mental health” and you can read it for yourself here. I found the entire article fascinating, it made a plethora of points, but the paragraph which stuck with me was this:

“The term “mental health” is a euphemism, and euphemisms are what we use when we want to obscure something. This language — in contrast to “mental illness” — encourages us to focus on the regulation of more or less transient states, and on the maintenance of something we supposedly all have.”

A few years ago I had a discussion with someone who argued that we all have mental health, and we each sit somewhere on a scale which can slide about as we move through life. He thought we should adopt the term mental health instead of mental illness, since nearly everyone in the world will suffer with periods of sadness or anxiety or grief in their lives. In other words, why stigmatise people by calling them mentally ill as if everyone else is mentally healthy?

I understood the point he was making, and sort of liked the notion of the sliding scale, but I also got slightly defensive about the idea. Everyone has struggles, everyone should be encouraged to talk about the moments when their brain doesn’t feel quite right. But I didn’t think then, and I still don’t now, that a person diagnosed with a mental illness and a person who will face moments of mental difficulty are the same.

A mental illness is not curable, it doesn’t disappear when a life challenge has passed. Talking about it is great, but it’s not helpful for everyone. Partly because somewhere down the line, we decided that the language around mental health (for that is the term which seems to have won out) would be soft, sanitised, non scary.

I don’t know when this happened - somehow we went from stereotyping and mocking the mentally ill (I’m old enough to remember weekly tabloid headlines about crazed and psychotic killers) to meaningless ad campaigns from global brands telling us they give a shit about our brains. Just this afternoon, I saw an Instagram post from a major celebrity talking about how important it is to talk about mental health. It was four entire paragraphs and it meant absolutely nothing to me. Oh, and it was sponsored content, so the text was probably written by a marketing executive.

I’ve written about this so often, I forgive you if you’ve stopped reading. But every time I see someone exhorting you to talk about my mental health, I feel slightly weary, not grateful. I know these campaigns will help some people, I know the celebrity’s post will probably prompt someone to reach out to a friend and tell them they’re having a hard time (though unless they can afford private treatment, the wait for professional help will inevitably be too long). I know it’s not all pointless, even though in my most cynical moments I see this endless encouraging people to “talk” as a way for brands to make money and the government to keep refusing to give the mental health wing of the NHS enough money.

But I think the successful and widespread use of “mental health” has left less room for the people who have a diagnosed mental illness. How often do you see brands or celebrities talk about psychosis, severe OCD, bi polar, complex PTSD or debilitating anxiety? Somehow we’ve squeezed the space that people have to talk about these serious illnesses.

It’s just easier to use vague and gentle terms isn’t it? Easier to say something using an umbrella term than to potentially distress people by talking about the worst elements of mental illness. You can’t sell razors by describing the 3 months where you felt like your parents might be robots.

I want there to be space to discuss mental health, mental illness and every other challenge the human brain faces. But I don’t see it. During a dire OCD moment last summer, I listened to a podcast about anxiety, hoping I’d feel less alone. Ten minutes in, I realised the hosts weren’t actually diagnosed as having a mental illness and the conversation was just platitude upon platitude. Do deep breaths and you’ll feel better. Wow, I wish I’d thought of that years ago.

As an add on - someone just messaged me to say that she feels incredibly alone with her diagnosis since everyone she works with thinks they have an understanding of mental health issues which does not cover her condition in any way. So in effect, she is actually more stigmatised for not living within the confines of what society now understands mental illness to be. And that’s doing a disservice to her, and to the people around her who want to help.

Here we end the rant. Have some Barney as a cleanser.

And here are some recommendations -

Watch - I’ve posted about this on Instagram but it’s worth repeating. Three salons at the seaside, 39 minutes of joy.

Look at - I keep clicking on Frank Cadogan Cowper’s painting Vanity.

Listen to - this podcast episode is old, but I still think about it all the time. Expensive art, possible forgery, what more could you want?