To what am I referring? Well celebrities really. In recent
times there have be scathing columns written about mental health and
celebrities joking rather too rashly about suicide and various other indiscretions
as well, and then celebrities opening up about their own personal mental health
problems, such as, Steven Fry, Victoria Pendleton, Catherine Zeta Jones and
many, many, more and it has rather brought out a discussion from sufferers and
non sufferers alike as to whether it is helpful for them to talk about mental health,
or joke about it or in fact how to speak about mental health at all. It seems
that no one really has any idea how do it without causing offense.
I’m all for putting people straight about ‘The Facts’ as I
call them, and not putting up with insensitivity or offensive and derogatory
terms but they comes a point where enough is enough and I say just speak your
mind. The problem is that actually I think we’re all kind of doing that and
really not paying enough attention to how it might sound to someone else.
Someone in fact who may have some very real and painful reason why this might
be upsetting, painful or downright offensive to them but really it’s extremely
difficult to cater to everyone.
In many ways I wonder if the larger part of the problem isn’t that someone else’s voice is being heard and not the person who is hurt?
But what I still don’t get is when did one person, because
they have money or fame or such have more of a say then the rest of us; to the
point where we start believing that whatever they say will be not only repeated
but universally accepted as being so or acceptable because they did it or said
it regardless of their experiences. It seems nuts to me, but then I am a self
confessed Celebrity phobe. Don’t read it and generally don’t want to know. The
only reason that most of it comes to my attention is because other people point
it out to me and I think maybe I should go and have a look and see if it was really
as bad as all that. -My reasons for not reading it are more about how much it
unsettles me emotionally than it is not being interested in people lives-
But the world is not
me, everyone seems to read this stuff avidly, but there are three things going
on here for me, one is about stigma and reducing it, two is about setting and
maintaining boundaries of decency and three is about encouraging others to seek
help and not feel alone in their suffering. In the Telegraph recently I read an
article about celebrities not helping
I followed the writers argument for a long time without really thinking about
what I expected of celebrities but also how stigma is lifted. I’ve read some of
India Knights Column in the Sunday times
and how she thinks it’s gone and even more from other people who have taken
against some of the comments Ms Zeta Jones has made about bi polar and I was
left feeling confused. Not sure whether I didn’t agree with parts of what was
being said. I certainly don’t agree with all of it or in fact the manner some
of it was said but still if this is a
debate then shouldn’t all sides be heard and responded too?
The other thing is that celebrity or not they may not be as
articulate or as well versed in mental health issues as some people who are
less fortunate and less well listened too and it rankles the hell out of people
to have things said poorly and inaccurately in their eyes.
But has people speaking out helped?
Some would say not but I’m not convinced, they may not have
given the best or more accurate picture of mental health to the world but then
I’m not sure they have to. In fact I would go so far as to say all they need to
do is get people talking. Mind tool a small online survey of people via Populus
to gauge the effect celebrities speaking out has had
the results are being shown on their site here and results show quite a
favourable response. 70% say it’s important celebrities speak in the media about
mental health and 1 in 5 has been inspired to start a conversation about mental
health with a loved one or colleague. What is not clear is how they recruited
the people to this survey and as always I do wonder if it was because it
touched these peoples lives, so of course this positive result would be there.
But still that’s 2100 people who were affected by celebrities in some way, of
course you can’t tell exactly how many or to what extent they were affected as
I haven’t got the full report.
I guess I feel that
just because the people on the ground haven’t seen a change to their lives yet
that you should conclude that it isn’t helping. We have more reporting on mental
health that ever before and on a broader set of topics too. So it isn’t all
to your liking, so what it’s never going to be. So it’s not all as accurate as
you’d like it, again so what. The point in raising awareness is to get people
talking, to get people commenting and whether you agree with them or not it is
getting people talking and thinking about mental health and what it is to have
good mental health.
So one person says bipolar is completely controllable...well
that’s just one persons opinion and whether it goes around the globe into every
newspaper or not really isn’t going to change how easy it is to achieve this
and it’s sodding difficult. (see this post for more info on bipolar and control) Ms Jones is a very lucky woman if that is the case
and I congratulate her on her achievement and regardless of whether she falls
foul of her illness later on why should she not say that she’s in control if
she feels she is. She is only saying I have control and giving hope to those
still trying to get stable and be happy. It may imply to others that everyone
can control it however I think this is a leap too far and it would be a shame
if celebrities stop trying to give hope for fear of the criticism they may come
under from the very people they would wish to inspire.
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