It’s time to face up to mental health, it’s no laughing matter
JOKER, the new film about one of the all-time great cinematic villains, has smashed box office records. Hitting our cinema screens during a week dedicated to mental health was in all probability a coincidence and yet the film is right on the nose when it comes to mental health. Sitting in the cinema for two hours (or any dark space for that matter) usually means lights out for me, but I was transfixed by the film, especially the incredible performance of Joaquin Phoenix in the latest superhero origin story.
Joker was an uncomfortable watch. It depicted an ugly world, specifically a Gotham city that has eerie echoes of scenes from news clips shot in Minneapolis last week outside a Trump campaign rally, where protestors set fire to some of the president’s merchandise, including the signature Make America Great Again hats.
On Saturday I sat down after a busy week to watch some world news only to find myself hesitating – remote in hand. I usually get my world news fix at the weekend, except for what I pick up on Twitter or CNN during lunch breaks. On Saturday I didn’t want to turn on the news because I was afraid of what I’d find.
Maybe it was me being spun out having taken on too much during the week. That was part of it, but the real story was the horrendous sequence of alarming news stories confronting me (and all
of us) over recent weeks. Between what has been happening in Syria, Brexit and the protests in America and Hong Kong, we are under siege with bad news stories.
World Mental Health Day on Thursday saw people post about their experiences of mental health problems. Some were harrowing, others instructive, but all helped shine a light on mental health. One of the abiding images, for me, was a collage of images of celebrities: musicians, actors, TV personalities who had died by suicide. They were all smiling, some with looks of pure joy on their faces. The caption read: ‘This is what depression looks like’.
They say one in four of us will suffer from mental health problems in our lives and one in ten of us will have a long-term condition like depression. That’s not including people with substance use disorders and addictions. None of us know what the person sitting next to us at work, or on the bus is going through. We’re conditioned to judge each other by what we say, how we act and by our possessions, but maybe the best way to live is to not judge and just listen and observe.
The smallest gesture, whether it’s a Hello or taking the time to ring a friend you’ve lost contact with who, you know, has been through the mill emotionally for whatever reason, will repay the time and effort you put in ten, 100, 1000-fold. Sadly many of us steer a course away from any overt engagement with our interior lives, laughing off ‘psychobabble’ talk, steering a middle course at best. The few who do raise their heads above the parapet, opening themselves up to judgement, are to be applauded as it can’t be easy.
In a world in which empathy seems to be replaced with venal, selfish acts increasingly, taking that leap to imagine what it is like to walk in the shoes of another person less well off than yourself, is of all worth.