There is something to be said for the renowned stoicism of
we Brits. Don’t talk about your feelings. Don’t show emotion. Pick yourself up,
dust yourself off and start all over again … penned and sung by Americans so
maybe a more appropriate British cliché is to keep a stiff upper lip. Such a
lip used to be considered a sign of strength and dignity. I believe it still is.
It has become fashionable to talk to anyone who will listen, and even to those of us who really don’t want to, about one’s mental health. The Cambridges and Sussexes are to blame. Is everyone trying to curry royal favour and get an invite to a Buck House garden party by opening up, being true to themselves, and “sharing”? If I hear one more footballer / actress / student / thief / yummy mummy / Influencer (whatever that is) or Royal claim “My mental health has suffered,” I swear that MY mental health will suffer.
Gosh I feel better for that rant. It might not be good to talk but it sure is good to write. Now I can moderate my tone and sound a bit less like a cruel cretin. Well, I’ll try.
One of the problems with this mental-health fetish is that there’s a difference between mental illness and just finding something stressful, such as lockdown, missing a penalty or, in my case, boiling over a pan of spaghetti when I’ve just cleaned the hob. With everyone jumping on the bandwagon and opening up, demanding NHS counselling services and serotonin boosts, wanting someone to blame and seeking compensation, then the people who truly madly deeply genuinely need help are shunted further back in the queue and there’s less of everything to go round, including friendly ears.
The only time I have been ‘diagnosed’ (by a friend, not a medical pro) as having clinical depression was when I was still living in the States, just after 9/11, and (coincidentally) preparing to return permanently to Blighty. Hubby was already back working in London. I suppose I was feeling guilty about deserting my friends, when they were feeling even more depressed than I was and needed all the shoulders to cry on that they could find.
Outwardly I was my usual cheerful self and I certainly didn't go around bleating oh woe is me. Well I wouldn't when I could see others were suffering much much more. The obvious symptom that raised questions was a startling lack of appetite for three months after the terrorist attack. (But I did get back into my favourite jeans.) Then one day, I drove to somewhere near Boston (might have been Lowell) with a friend who was also struggling – not that she was bleating either; I just knew – to see Robert Pinsky, America’s Poet Laureate at the time. He talked about how poetry had helped him and others cope emotionally with the terrorist attack, not necessarily writing poems or reading others’ poems about 9/11, but any poem, read with fresh eyes, interpreted anew, finding new meaning, solace, understanding, even forgiveness. The power of words and the human spirit. We were entranced.
Afterwards, we popped into a vegetarian Indian restaurant for supper, and gobbled down everything in sight. Screw the incessant moaning, professional intervention and pills – friendship, poetry and good food got us both back on the mental straight and narrow.
But some cases are different. Deeper. Soul-destroying. Like the family and colleagues of PC Andrew Harper. They need all the sympathy, love and support from us decent folks, and should be top of the queue for professional help if they want it. Their hurt is genuine, understandable, proportionate and deserves to be prioritised, unlike the snivelling original arrestee (I refuse to apply any label of respectability to him).
A friend of PC Harper’s murderous, cowardly yobs, he was released without charge and is now suing the police for wrongful arrest claiming, according to the BBC, “This experience broke me and tore my family apart”.
Really? Broke you? What a wimp. A weak, lily-livered little wazzock. Compare his infantile whining with the strength and dignity of the policeman’s family – their combined stiff upper lip, if you will.
If this wimp is suing the police for causing him mental duress, what’s the proportionate action PC Harper’s family should be allowed to take against the trio now languishing in prison?
I don’t know about you but I found that question rather therapeutic.
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