ARE you surviving rather than thriving, only just keeping your head above water? It’s this survive or thrive dichotomy that forms the focus of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, which starts today. And since the chances are either you or a loved-one is currently experiencing the former as opposed to the latter, it’s clearly something we all need to consider.
While flicking through the papers yesterday I couldn’t help but be struck by the number of stories that had mental health issues at their centre. And again and again it seemed to be men struggling most.
First there was ex-soldier Alan Stewart’s harrowing and moving account of his descent into violence and alcoholism as he struggled to cope with life on civvy street after leaving the military. Then there was psychologist Steve Pope warning that banned footballer Joey Barton’s gambling addiction is only the tip of the iceberg, that hundreds of players in the lower leagues are blowing their wages, relying on payday loans and stealing to feed their out-of-control gambling problems.
Next came the reams of reaction to Hollywood star Brad Pitt’s interview about the disintegration of his marriage to actor Angelina Jolie, struggles with alcohol and drugs, and feeling of failure as a father to their five children. I won’t lie; if I hadn’t been pondering Mental Health Awareness Week I’d probably have been rolling my eyes at all this. Poor super-handsome, super-rich Brad, right?
Well, I suppose we must try not to let fatuous, over-hyped tabloid coverage and never-ending social media comment allow us to ignore serious issues that affect us all or switch off our basic human empathy skills. After all, beneath Pitt’s glamorous surface is clearly something more prosaic and familiar: a depressed middle-aged man who has just lost his family due to a failure to talk about his feelings and handle his demons.
The three men at the centre of all these stories have something in common, of course. All were outwardly successful and seemed to have it all. In reality, however, they weren’t just “not thriving”, to use the language of the Mental Health Foundation, they were sinking. And none felt able to open up and admit they had problems.
All worked in macho occupations that perpetuate the sort of “manly”, strong, silent clichés other parts of life dispensed with years ago. We as a society often perpetuate these gender stereotypes by allowing soldiers, footballers and actors to get away with “boyish” bad behaviour as long as they don’t try to escape the gilded cages we build for them. For some, the pressures associated with keeping up this hideous, outdated act clearly becomes overwhelming.
Meanwhile, men across every age, class and work-related demographic you could think of are experiencing mental health problems, being thrown into the same cycles of depression and hopelessness, isolating them from partners, families and friends who either don’t know how bad things are, or rejected when they try to help.
With this in mind, we should praise Pitt’s decision to talk openly in his interview about attending and embracing therapy, just as we applauded Prince Harry’s a couple of weeks ago. As both of these men know, bottling it all up and blocking out problems with drink, drugs, gambling or whatever can only help for so long. Eventually, we all have to face up to ourselves and our problems. And we can only do this by talking to other people. In general, women tend to have more well-established networks of friends and family, and do this better than men.
Admitting you need help and asking is incredibly daunting. But as Pitt and former soldier Alan Stewart both highlight, getting your life back on track is the bravest, most “manly” thing you can do. I wish them both well.
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