January is cruel enough without the wellness industry cashing in
T.S. Eliot believed it to be April, but there’s an argument that in fact January is the cruellest month. The dark days, cold weather and seemingly endless nights, coupled with financial post-Christmas penury, and the expectations of a new year and a new you, bear heavily on the soul. Which is why it’s also a peak time for the wellness industry, and of course the social media moguls, to make a fast buck out of all our insecurities.
But there is a more sinister element to the current chatter around mental health. It was once seen as a taboo subject, something we didn’t really talk about, but in recent years the dialogue has opened up, which is wonderful to see. However, thanks to the constant need for social media validation, what is an important subject and an important push for societal change is in danger of fast becoming mindless chatter on a sepia-filtered Instagram post.
This is, of course, magnified by the current climate we are in being in the midst of a global pandemic is not good for anyone’s mental health.
Narrative
But the current trend is to infantilise what is a serious and important issue by flooding the market with podcasts, wellness journals and ‘heartfelt’ posts by influencers who are busy counting the euros dropping into their bank accounts when the cameras are turned off.
Right now it’s the time of year when social media is flooded with lots of ‘you can talk to me’ and ‘share this so that others know you will listen’ posts.
It is all very well to tell people that you are open to having a conversation, you are there for them if they need someone to talk to and that people should not suffer alone. But we are not equipping people with the next part of that conversation which is that, if they are feeling low, anxious, upset or worse, then they need to seek professional help, to go to their GP and ask for advice, to look on the internet and find a decent counsellor, to get the appropriate help they need from a professional who is trained in this kind of illness. Not for some teens or twentysomethings – or indeed adults – to try to help someone with a problem they are not equipped to deal with, let alone fix.
Discussing a problem with a friend can help bring it out in the open, but unless the root cause of your issue is properly addressed, then it isn’t going to go away.
The narrative needs to refocus on the fact that mental health is the same as physical health and needs to be discussed and treated in the same way.
No illness is the same and there is not a blanket ‘one size fits all’ cure, but unless it’s something that lasts just a day or two, our default setting is a visit to the GP or another medical professional.
If I came to you because I thought my leg was broken, you wouldn’t tell me that taking some time and space for myself to meditate would fix it.
If I found a really dodgylooking lump that might be cancer, you wouldn’t hand me a pink journal with gold lettering and tell me that writing down my thoughts and goals and taking some time out for me was the way to treat it.
Likewise, if I had a stomach bug or a cough that wasn’t going away, you’d direct me to my GP.
So why is it now de rigueur to seek our mental health advice from an untrained individual who has decided to add another self-published book or wellness podcast to the neverending self-help pile?
Just a few weeks ago, gym owners and personal trainers were making a lot of disingenuous noise about keeping their gyms open in the middle of a pandemic, claiming they were essential to mental health, showing exactly just how denigrated the term has become.
Sure, doing exercise will help if you are feeling slightly stressed, but you don’t need to do this in the gym or indoors for that matter. A walk or a run outside will do the same for those endorphins. And how is pumping iron in a place where you are at a higher risk of infection from a virus that can kill you going to help you if you have anorexia or a personality disorder?
Putting pressure on people to mind each other creates another issue because, try as you might, unless you are a trained counsellor, psychotherapist or psychiatrist, you aren’t going to be able to make someone else better. And should the unthinkable happen, there is an immense burden of guilt that you will be left to carry around.
I know this first-hand. In 2004, at the age of 38, my brother died from bipolar disorder. That’s not what it says on his death certificate, but it’s what killed him. He had access to services, counselling, medication, a loving family who willed him to get well, who supported him at every turn, who did everything they could to help him, but who had to watch as he faded away in front of their eyes, in the grip of a serious illness from which he couldn’t recover.
Impact
Which is probably one of the reasons why I find the current denigration of mental health extremely frustrating, as I am sure so many trained professionals do too.
Yes, people should keep talking about mental health – there are things that need to be discussed, such as access to services; the inequality of help available to those who can pay for it and those who can’t; the addiction issues that blight our society; and the lack of provision from the Government for overstretched services, which will be pushed even further as the full impact of the pandemic takes hold.
And little has changed in the workplace environment, where suffering from depression or anxiety is still for the most part regarded as a sign of weakness, a chink in your armour.
There’s so much to talk about. But let’s centre that discussion in the right place and not around some fictional idea of a ‘Blue Monday’ that’s worse than others, which was actually created to sell holidays.
The last year has been tough, there’s no doubt about that, and some of us are managing better than others. So by all means, talk to a friend about how you are feeling if things are getting on top of you. But if you need help, for your own sake seek it in the right place. If you are providing a listening ear, listen but also advise your friend to seek the right help too. And remember, no one is responsible for your mental health except you.