“Mental health” seems to be a big issue these days, starting with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle telling us how difficult it is to block out the noise from the British tabloid media, which has more or less stopped—not because of any “pressure” from “the Firm,” which seemed to enjoy all the shade being dumped on Markle—but probably because the tabloids were having trouble getting recent photos of Markle wearing “inappropriate” shoes to complain about, and the fact that the American media doesn’t really care that much what they do. That doesn’t mean the talk concerning their mental health is over (we’ll probably find out more than we want to know in his upcoming tell-all), bust I suspect that a lot of people wish they had their mental health “problems.”
Some people are praised for their stand on mental health. For example, commentators in the above ground media have been supportive of the “bravery” of American gymnast Simone Biles for stepping aside (briefly) from Olympic competition because of her “mental health” issues; when some questioned why she was even there to take to spot of another gymnast whose mind might be more “in the game,” Biles came back out and reported that her aunt had passed away recently. The underground sports media was less forgiving; everyone has problems, you just have to rise above and perform. Biles did come back and win a bronze medal, but given the fact that the U.S. was supposed to sweep all the gold medals in women’s gymnastics and only won two, she certainly let her teammates down, and probably receive sympathy points from the judges for the one bronze medal, nudging out someone who was probably more deserving.
There are other ways people deal with “mental health” issues. Everybody knows that Aaron Rodgers has his “issues”; is holding grudges from his high school years a “mental health” issue? Some people might think it is. Of course Rodgers’ idea of “therapy” is being a Jeopardy host, spending time in Hawaii during OTAs, playing golf during mandatory mini-camp—just having “fun” and letting other people do his moaning for him in public. Rodgers wasn’t dealing with a “mental health” crisis, he was just pouting about his hurt feelings; this is the Rodgers who refused to run the plays that Mike McCarthy called in that last season, and the team tanked with a 6-9-1 record. I still think that Rodgers fiancé had something to do with all of this, particularly as training camp approached and Rodgers wasn’t going anywhere; she seemed genuinely upset when she basically reposted Stephen A. Smith’s angry harangues on social media.
Other people have different ways of handling “mental health” crisis. The day before the December 22, 2003 Monday Night Football game between the Packers and the Raiders, Brett Favre’s father died of a heart attack. Favre indicated that he believed his father would have wanted him to play; now, Favre had started every game since week 4 of the 1992 season, and that probably had something to do with the equation as well. Favre certainly didn’t perform that night like he down in the dumps; he performed in a way that would make his father proud—playing his best half of football of his career, throwing for 311 yards and four touchdowns by halftime. Favre didn’t use “mental health” as an excuse to not perform as he was capable of.
Mental health issues are often equated with “suicidal” thoughts, or a failure to “cope” with a situation that may or may not be theirs to control. But why are we supposed to “cheer” the “heroism” of celebrities who confess to failures to cope when things are not set for them on silver platters, while ignoring people with real mental health issues, like, say, the guy walking down the sidewalk shouting vague but menacing threats at nobody in particular; such people exist in a scary world of their own. Dementia, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s—those are mental health conditions that can’t be “cured.” And we are supposed to “cheer” people who feel sorry for themselves because they can’t “deal” with being put upon or not getting their way?
There are also “mental health” conditions that just seem so because words and actions matter go against the grain of what most people would say is common sense and simple human decency. It can take the form of mass psychosis (check out any video of Jordan Klepper’s travels in Trumpworld), that is aroused and amplified by the kind of people who in “normal” times who would be dismissed as “crazy”: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley, Mo Brooks, Ron Johnson—and of course Donald Trump. Charles Pierce in Esquire called people like this a “one-stop shop for all things insane” and that modern conservatism is “rotten” to the core, and it is people like this who are “parasites” who “feed on the decay.”
Trump may be out of office, but that doesn’t mean there are no others in power willing to ride his “crazy train,” like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who insists on being contrary in the face of the fact that Covid-19 is out-of-control in his state. People are dying in his state because of his pigheadedness; there has to be some kind of “mental health” condition that describes a disease whereas someone refuses to get off the train tracks when a locomotive is coming straight at him. And there are those willing to stand on the tracks with him; as satirist Jonathan Swift wrote, “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceived, it is too late—the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect.”
And then again there are people who just don’t fit the mold of what “normalcy” is supposed to look—and sound—like. When it comes to “what’s wrong with the kid,” their parents just don’t want to hear from “mental health professionals” that the problem might be their parenting. Some kids might seem not “normal” because they don’t talk much, or keep to themselves. Whatever the reasons for this, sometimes these behaviors have no chance of being “corrected” because some people think you can beat or punish kids into “normality,” when in fact they are just pushing them more and more inward, and more apt to do things that are defensive mechanisms because of “uncertainty” caused by the lack of benefit for “good” behavior—i.e. asking for something seems more likely the cause for punishment if a parent thinks you are “taking advantage” of them during a brief spell of “niceness”—and thus doing things “on the sly” has a higher risk/reward benefit. When someone doesn’t want to face the truth and try a different way—like simple human kindness—it naturally leads to “self-fulfilling” results.
Whether real or not, Johns Hopkins claims that 26 percent of adults in this country suffer from some form of “mental health disorder,” which I suppose will come as a surprise to some people.
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