Acceptance of #mentalhealth difficulty: where do you draw the line?
It’s easy to have deep acceptance of things that won’t affect us.
Thinking about Prince Harry and his interview with the Telegraph today, where he talks about the aftermath of his mother’s death and the ways that it affected his mental health, it’s interesting to wonder: just where do we draw the line at acceptance of mental health difficulties and who are we least likely to accept?
Certainly there has been nothing but praise for the Prince. He’s an amiable royal, and it’s wrong to imply any sort of cynicism in his decision to speak publically about his experiences. It must have been difficult for him and it would be spiteful to assume anything other than benign intentions.
I tweeted in response to the story:
“It’s weird. We only call people brave for speaking in public about #mentalhealth when they make it clear they want nothing from us”
“As soon as someone speaks about their #mentalhealth because they need something from us they are a scrounger, a special pleader, an excuser”
“Listening to celebs gives feeling of having changed things. #mentalhealth isn’t empathy Olympics. Your sympathy must translate into policy”
It’s pretty easy to accept a prince who will never ask us directly for anything or impinge on our private space or family or work life. Would we feel the same about acceptance when it required something from us aside from our empathy?
In 2015 Public Health England commissioned a number of mental health questions to be included in NatCen’s British Social Attitudes survey. They create two fictional people, Andy who was paranoid and heard voices and had withdrawn from work and social life, and Stephen who was experiencing lack of joy in his life and was struggling to get through the day. The first was intended to convey a schizophrenia diagnosis and the second a diagnosis of depression.
They found marked differences in what people felt about people with mental health difficulties based on their diagnosis.
This is how they described Stephen:
“Stephen has been feeling really down for about six months and his family have noticed that he hasn’t been himself. He doesn’t enjoy things the way he normally would. He wakes up early in the morning with a flat heavy feeling that stays with him all day long. He has to force himself to get through the day, and even the smallest things seem hard to do. He finds it hard to concentrate on anything and has no energy.”
29 percent of people wouldn’t want Stephen, who sounded depressed, living next door to them. 32 percent wouldn’t want to socialise with him but 71 per cent would make friends with him 35 percent wouldn’t fancy Stephen as a workmate or colleague 64 percent wouldn’t be keen on him marrying into the family and 82 percent of people wouldn’t want him to look after their kids.
This how Andy was described:
“Andy was doing pretty well until six months ago. But then things started to change. He thought that people around him were criticising him and talking behind his back. Andy heard voices even though no one else was around. These voices told him what to do and what to think. Andy couldn’t work any more, stopped joining in with family activities and started to spend most of the day in his room.”
Andy, described in a way that suggested schizophrenia or psychosis, fared even worse. 55 per cent wouldn’t want him next door, 45 percent wouldn’t socialise with him, though 39 percent would make friends with him. 44 per cent wouldn’t like Andy as a work mate. Even more calamitously for Andy, who was described as thinking people were talking about him behind his back and criticising him, 73 percent of people would be iffy about him marrying into their family and 90 per cent of people said they wouldn’t be comfortable with him babysitting.
It seems we do have a plimsoll line that measures the how deeply we can accept the mental health needs and experiences of others before we feel we too are sinking. The question is: can we be honest about the limits of our acceptance and the implications it holds for people we cannot allow ourselves to get near?
If it turns out that it isn’t me, it’s you, when it comes to mental health what does this mean for people that others can’t just accept; those with problems and challenges that really rock the boat?
