ARE WE BINGEING ON OUR FEELINGS?

WE LIVE IN A CULTURE WHERE TALKING ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL IS VENERATED. BUT IS IT TIME TO STOP OVERINDULGING... FOR THE SAKE OF OUR SANITY?

We’ve gone from having a ‘stiff upper lip’ to sharing every detail of our emotions in a bid to help us deal with our feelings – but, Kerry Potter asks, is it for the better?

”EVEN INSTAGRAM DOESN’T PROVIDE RESPITE, THANKS TO THE RISE OF the 4OO-word caption UNPICKING THE PAST 24 HOURS”

Recently, I returned to a company I was last employed at a decade ago. A lot had changed – no one uses landlines now, the coffee is better – but the thing that most struck me were the posters plastered on the toilet doors and in the communal spaces. ‘Need to talk?’ they enquire, before offering not one but five phone numbers for counselling services.

There’s been a dramatic shift in the cultural conversation in recent years, in that it never ends. Perhaps you’ve noticed – people talking (and talking) about every fear, hope, dream and anxiety. We’re unloading our innermost feelings everywhere and upon anyone. My friend often gives me a lift to the station to commute into London. The payback? I must endure a rundown of his emotional state, a raking over of the previous day’s emotions and predictions for what feelings today might bring. It’s intense for 7am. Even Instagram doesn’t provide respite, thanks to the rise of the 4OO-word caption – well, essay – unpicking the poster’s previous 24 hours. Despite still wearily scrolling past, when I get home, I question my children at length on their emotional states, scanning their responses for red flags, before ‘workshopping’ my day with my husband.

When I was little, my mother would scold me for being a drama queen. Yet now, that’s our default state of being. If you’re not feeling all the feels – and broadcasting them live – are you even human? We’re performatively emoting on podcasts (no need to edit yourself, just keep waffling), TV talk shows, scripted reality shows, radio phone-ins, social media and in print (hey, it’s all content!). In his 1932 sci-fi novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley conjured up the idea of ‘the feelies’: a futuristic cinema experience where viewers clutched handles on their seat to feel the on-screen characters’ feelings. Like so many of his predictions, what sounded dystopian nearly a century ago now seems, well, entirely reasonable.

This tendency is what addiction specialist, therapist, lecturer and teacher Gillian Bridge calls ‘emotional obesity’. We’re told it’s good to talk, but Bridge, controversially, isn’t so sure. The no-nonsense Brit has spent 3O+ years working with prisoners, addicts and mental health clients of all ages. ‘I’ve come across many a client who was hugely eloquent about their various emotional states, but no more mentally sound for it,’ she says.

In her new book, Sweet Distress, she criticises ‘our love affair with feelings’. Encouraging people to wallow in their emotions is akin to stuffing them with sugar, she says – it makes people feel good in the short-term, but stores longer-term problems. ‘We should help people to manage their emotions, rather than immersing themselves in them,’ she says. ‘If you ask a child to memorise something, you get them to repeat, revise and rehearse it. By the same token, if you’re feeling negative emotions and you repeat, revise and rehearse them, they’ll stick.’ Sometimes, she says, it’s better to just button it – which takes a sledgehammer to the accepted wisdom that a problem shared is a problem halved.

We can thank the Victorians for the stiff upper lip, inspired by the Stoics and the Spartans of Ancient Greece. In response to vast changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, the Victorians believed the key to maintaining social order was to keep one’s emotions in check. That sentiment – more precisely, lack thereof – carried Brits through two world wars, as they kept calm and carried on.

But keeping schtum only worked to a point. By the late 198Os, talking therapies were on the rise as the emphasis changed to workshopping our worries. Oprah Winfrey ran with the idea, creating a talk show template that encourages people to publicly pour out their hearts to this day. In the UK, the death of Princess Diana in 1997 caused an unprecedented outpouring of collective emotion. If you hadn’t been there, it would be hard to appreciate how truly weird it was to see so many people – grown men! – clutching flowers and weeping in the street. The stiff lip became decidedly wobbly.

And this was reflected in the wider culture. People had written about themselves and their lives for millennia but, as a literary genre, the memoir was considered tacky, a poor relation to philosophy and literary fiction. Not any more. Among the new wave of firstperson writers was controversial author Elizabeth Wurtzel. Her notorious 1994 book Prozac Nation was shocking because it talked viscerally about her depression at a time when no one openly did that kind of thing. Now juicy, heightened confessions are splattered across every other page, and are as lucrative as they are widespread. It’s been dubbed the TMI economy.

Of course, celebrities haven’t been immune to this. Where we once worshipped enigmas – say, Madonna; forever fabulous, never relatable – modern stars are fêted for their authenticity. (See Taylor Swift opening up her world to fans in Miss Americana) And Prince Harry has been at the fore of championing mental health causes, by talking about his problems in a way that would have seemed deeply unprincely a decade ago. While this willingness to share can be helpful, these days, no celebrity interview is complete without a revelation of a personal struggle.

Then there’s social media. Influencers post plaintive Instagram unburdenings in the guise of keeping it real. But the platform is so

”INFLUENCERS GARNER UP TO 1O TIMES MORE ENGAGEMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS ABOUT mental health issues ”

commercialised, many of the girls-nextdoor are living lifestyles that no longer chime with the masses. ‘They can’t pretend they’re the same as their followers,’ says Sara McCorquodale, author of Influence and founder of influencer intelligence platform, Corq. ‘But they’re still human. That’s how they can connect – by sharing their struggles. So now you see this mass confessional behaviour.’

It makes business sense, too. Influencers garner up to 1O times more engagement on posts about mental health issues compared to more lighthearted captions, with ‘anxiety’ used three times more in 2O19 than 2O16, according to influence marketers Captiv8. We’ve all paused on posts where a friend spills their guts; it seems callous to simply ‘like’ it. Emotional outpourings require a supportive comment in a way a standard selfie doesn’t. Algorithms reward posts that garner greater engagement with increased visibility so, if your livelihood is based on metrics, it makes sense to go ‘sadfishing’. This is the practice of exaggerating your emotions to snag attention, a descendent of cryptic Facebooks posts circa a decade ago, posted by your neediest friends to elicit the classic response: ‘U OK hun?’ ‘This is the era of candid content,’ says McCorquodale. ‘We’re moving away from that picture-perfect look, where photos are heavily filtered, the captions are sugary and everything is wonderful. Things will continue to become more gritty.’ Social media, it seems, is going through its grunge phase.

I’m not suggesting that we embrace the no-nonsense spirit of the 197Os bloke, put a sock in it, go down the pub, grab a pint and talk solely about football (hi, Dad!). Of course, there are situations where expressing oneself honestly and openly is not just cathartic, but potentially a life-saver. To a certain extent, it is good to talk.

But when we spout forth incessantly, we neglect to listen, says Kate Murphy, author of the insightful You’re Not Listening. A modern signifier of success, she points out, is doing a TED Talk. Oh, the glamour of prowling around the stage, delivering your wisdom, ideally garnished with self-deprecation about your personal struggles. As for the audience? Who cares. Murphy, however, is on a mission to bring back the art of listening, the benefits of which go far beyond being a better dinner party guest. ‘If you’re always talking, you’re not able to connect with other people because that requires listening,’ she says. Yet listening can provide healthy nourishment to the emotionally obese.

‘If you’re feeling lonely, anxious or depressed, you need to get out of your head and not dwell on things,’ says Murphy. ‘Attachment expert Miriam Steele talks about “snatches of magic” – that lovely moment when you’re talking to someone and you really connect. The neuroscience matches that feeling of being in sync – your neural patterns actually sync with those of the person you’re listening to. That releases feelgood chemicals, such as oxytocin, which can combat negative feelings. But if you’re not listening or if you’re on your own, pouring out your soul to the internet, that doesn’t happen.’

What’s more, being good at listening can make you better at sifting through your own issues. ‘Listening determines the tone and quality of our inner dialogues,’ says Murphy. ‘Previous interactions teach us how to question, answer and comment so we can do the same with ourselves when we need to manage ethical dilemmas and think creatively.’ So become good at properly listening to others and you’ll be better at listening to (or indeed not listening to, when necessary) the voices in your head.

Murphy’s mission is noble. But it doesn’t seem like the din will die down any time soon. Emotional incontinence reigns supreme. The self-care industry will continue to encourage us to speak ‘our truth’, in the name of enhanced wellbeing. And the curse of the confessional Instagram ramble continues.

I chat about all of this to a friend of mine who has endured some tough times in recent years, including her husband suffering a life-changing accident, the sudden death of her beloved sister and her son being expelled from school. ‘Sometimes it’s better not to give your worries too much oxygen,’ she says. ‘Life is hard and bad things happen, but sometimes you need to prioritise and let the less bad things pass without too much comment.’ She’s right. Sometimes we just need to know when to stop talking.