Mental Health issues or Challenges of Life?

Sorry MooM00, I cross posted with you. I’m sorry you lost your husband, particularly in that way.
We have close friends whose son took his life. One of his brothers made an attempt 15 years later, still haunted by his older brothers death. Fortunately another brother had been worrying and set off to find him, he did. As a result, the family all had support from mh services.

maddyone, many posters have made the point you are about the importance of distinguishing between feelings, feeling stressed or worried and clinical depression or anxiety. I think that’s the point TB was making

Like others, I agree with TB.
I have suffered from clinical depression. It is horrible. I continue to take medication many years later because sometimes I feel myself slipping and I need to increase the medication. This often happens at particularly stressful times.
I don’t think stress is the same as a true clinical depression. That has to be experienced in order to truly understand.

Yes I think he is to a point I am a person who has navigated the road to good mental health with difficulty at times since a young teen now 65 I think some people do jump on the mental health band wagon very easily I use a term chemically in balanced and use lots of self soothing sayings like this will pass - it could have been worse - now let's sort this out - it won't last for ever - there's a lot of people worse off - and finally I am so grateful for ....... This helps me along with sleeping - meds - therapy of some description - being kind to myself - do something for other people - pacing myself - praising myself when I've surpassed my expectations too and watching lots of stand up comedy/upbeat music and genuinely empathetic to others woes I hope my reply helps I don't have a magic wand unfortunately

So sorry MooMOO. It's tough.

pascal30

It's almost become a badge of honour for people to say they have MH issues nowdays as we saw with Prince Harry.. but as people who have clinically assessed MH illnesses would probably agree that is very different to what we used to call the worried well..

How do any of us know what, if any, diagnosis Prince Harry has been given at any time in his life?
The death of a parent when the child is an adolescent is known to contribute to depression. I wouldn’t be surprised if PTSD was a possibility.
I try to ignore the usual criticisms/sneers towards this man but there’s always the exception

Kate1949 I am with you all the way, my husband took his own life and I never knew what he was really going through it was to late. Unless anyone has been through MH as I have and am still suffering from, I am just so grateful of the services provided for me.

Does nobody remember the Valium epidemic in the 1960's/70's - prescribed for anyone and everyone, referred to as Mother's Little Helper? Hundreds of women addicted to this. I think low level anxiety and depression has been around a long time but hushed up. At least today we can talk about it which is a huge step forward.

Smileless2012

Great post Doodledog and this in particular I think that there is a culture of 'self first' (often called self-care) that is endemic. Instead of thinking of the impact our actions have on others, too many people just see things in terms of how they are affected.

Once we renounced our society with its social obligations and individualism became the motivating factor, the end result was inevitable. Focus on self.

I believe the reason our parents and grandparents who indeed suffered terrible hardships weathered and survived them is because there was this cohesion that has now long gone.

I agree with Blair, but, at the same time - I would hesitate to denounce anyone's mental-health problems.

Your problems are very real to you, though might seem trivial to others.

... I'm fence-sitting, as usual.

Septimia

Yes, he has a point.

Too many people cite their mental health issues when they only have to cope with the normal ups and downs of life. Admittedly, the downs can be pretty tough at times.

What annoys me about it is that they divert resources from those people who genuinely have poor mental health, or mental illness, and really need the help.

I agree - and so emphatically with your point that resources are diverted to people who are feeling low, going through a bad time etc. Not what anyone wants to endure, but those with chronic disabling mental illness, who are in desperate need of care, support and treatment are going to lose out.

I agree with Tony Blair (first time ever!).
There are far too many people self diagnosing and what really annoys me are the so called 'stars' who jump on the band wagon and bemoan their mental health problems. Not a good example to set for their followers.
I worked with people who had enduring mental health problems and all this fashion of having so called mental health problems do the real sufferers a great disservice.

Another word for anxiety is fear and another word for depression is sadness. If you look at it like that I think you can look at things in a different way.
If you are anxious ask what is it you fear?
Likewise if someone is depressed what is making them sad?

I think he has a point.
Kate 1949 I completely understand your position,but the thoughts at that time were so very very different.Im sure if I told my mother some of my ‘problems’ it would have made my life even worse as she wouldn’t have believed me.
Whatever horrors our lives were at that time, we’ve learned to live with it somehow.

I agree with Tony. He phrased it carefully, & after all it's freedom of speech.
On TV sometimes, young people come on in a reality show / dog-rehoming show & say "I'm autistic" & the feeling you get is, yes they enjoyed saying that, it made them feel special.
It was awful when people couldn't talk about mental health because of the stigma. Relatives "disappearing" off the family tree & children in a home somewhere whose existence had to be kept secret - the current ability to see MH as, like physical health, something everyone needs to work on & no-one is exempt from potential problems with is a real advance. As is the ability to see those with lifelong personality disorders as having a lot to contribute & valuing them for that.

But the pendelum has swung too far when people are inordinately proud of their label, & the thing is, I've been deaf all my life & sometimes in a rare situation when I can hear well, I feel like a fraud cos I've explained to everyone I can't, almost to the point of "faking" deaf. Surely you get some of this effect with young people particularly self-diagnosed, they feel they have to "act out" the behaviours to show everyone how hard it is for them, whereas they might be better served by trying to minimise the behaviours ( I know disability politics doesn't agree with this, but in the real world...)

I don't know, but good for him for sounding a cautionary note on this.

Yes I think that he has a point.

We all have mental health, in the same way that we all have physical health- and the two are connected.
Yes, past generations lived through some horrendous situations and mental health issues might not have been mentioned, but they most certainly existed. No one talked about mental health back then in the same way as now- it was a bit of a taboo subject and individuals were seen to be troubled with their “nerves”.
What I’m trying to say is that mental health issues are more readily talked about now, which is a good thing. We have lots of “labels” for different conditions. If that makes supporting people who are struggling easier- then I’m all for it as it helps to talk.
Yes, there will be people who ‘jump on the bandwagon ‘ but does that not happen in so many other areas of life? Including people who feign back pain/ other illnesses to avoid work. And I’m not in any way suggesting that real back pain should be taken lightly.
Many people do struggle with their mental health- it has always been the case- the fact that we talk more freely now is a good thing in my opinion.

Yes, I think Blair has a point. GPs have little MH training and spend too little time with a patient to make a psych diagnosis. Also the Internet has a lot of info and misinfo about mental health and people diagnose themselves and others. In some cases 'MH issues' have become an excuse for avoiding work, etc. It's all a pity because it puts more stress on others and denies real mental patients resources which are very stretched

I'm very reluctant to agree with anything that man says, but having experienced a young person saying they can't do this, or can't do that because it affects their mental health, when the tasks are not arduous but just need some thinking about, I'm beginning to change my mind.

Treatment of people with mental health difficulties has changed so much in the last few decades. I did a mental health first aid course and learned all about how it has developed through history. There have always been people with mental illnesses and poor mental health, and it often was treated as some sort of moral failing, during WW1 men suffering from shell shock were often thought to be cowards.
The pull your socks up and you'll be ok , things aren't that bad can do a lot of harm. Not everyone has the same baseline. If someone has endured bullying at school or been treated abusively by their parents, something that happens that others who had a happy childhood and have plenty of friends will cope with easily might tip someone who is always stressed, can't get support from friends or family into major panic. Sometimes a minor thing being late home for a example, will not stress someone out who has a nice kind family who understands that things happen, but a woman who has an abusive husband will react very differently, she may be quizzed all about why, and was she seeing someone else, it's her fault and it's an incinv niece to him, living on eggshells not knowing what he will do, different people react differently to things that happen because of their different circumstances.
It's much better to try and address what might seem minor issues and help someone work out ways to deal with them, so they don't find ways to kill the pain. And there are indeed simple ways, chatting to someone who is kind, asking someone to go for a walk with them, going with a friend to a sports club, art....that won't cure an illness that needs medication, or a stay in hospital, but it all helps.
In families sometimes it is one person who has difficulties. That is often down to different experiences at heart.
People have always taken their own life, going way back in history, difficulties are nothing new

I agree with him.

Many years ago (over 25), one of the GPs I worked with used to tell patients to go and dig their garden, go for long walks, anything to tire themselves if they mentioned that they "felt low" during their consultation.

escaped

I found making presentations at university stressful, I found taking my first assemblies in front of a sea of pupils stressful, many a time I felt physically sick or dizzy, or came out in a red rash, but like Doodledog says, opting out or giving the task to someone else would be unfair and selfish.
TB is right to say, "confront those challenges" and learn from them.

Exactly. And if you'd been able to opt out at university, when it came to the crunch the assemblies would have been even harder to do. Presentations (in whatever form) are stressful, but the more we do, the more bearable they become. I saw generations of scared first years morph into confident graduates because they pushed through their comfort zones and realised they could do it.

Ali23

Doodledog, my response was to what Tony Blair was quoted as having said. I just think that a publicly influential figure eg Tony Blair should stick to what he knows as he has the public ear and the (toxic) media’s attention. He’s entitled to his opinion. I think he overestimates his own understanding and underestimates his possible impact.

Fair enough. I disagree😀.

Many things happening in the world today are causing people have anxiety and feel insecure. My heart goes out to children in particular who are going through things like school shootings and Covid that my generation couldn't even imagine. This has to have a negative impact on their mental health. Some of them may never be able to overcome this,especially as the world events are becoming more traumatic each day.

It's almost become a badge of honour for people to say they have MH issues nowdays as we saw with Prince Harry.. but as people who have clinically assessed MH illnesses would probably agree that is very different to what we used to call the worried well..

I do agree with Tony Blair, which must be a first, as I didn’t like him as a politician. Not his politics just him and his wife. I lost my Dad when I was 6 and mum when I was 15 so faced a lot of challenges early in life, but I never let that define me, I’ve tried all my life to face each challenge as it comes, without feeling sorry for myself. I appreciate I may be more resilient than some, but have tried to bring my children up to face each day and not to carry baggage into the future.

I don't agree that TB is overestimating his own understanding
Ali he's had first hand experience due to his D's suicide attempt and I agreed with what he said before I knew about his D.