I broke a toe once. If you know me, I’ve probably regaled you with the story before. If you knew me at the time, you will definitely have heard it. And there’s the story of the scar on my arm, from when I was drunkenly mucking about with a very sharp knife. Or the one on my brow, from where I drunkenly fell down a flight of stairs straight into a radiator.
Then there’s the classic about how I did my back in, jumping off what was either a huge sand dune or a small cliff. I was sober for that one and it was the worst, so I view the other injuries as proof I learned that lesson. A bit late, as it had a huge and lasting impact on my life, but I’m calling it a deferred success.
What you might not have heard is the story about those stories. Why I was drunk so frequently, and to such an extent that I kept injuring myself. Not the back – that was just garden variety stupidity. But the reason behind the rest? I don’t tend to talk about that. But I’m happy to embellish and retell the story of how I broke two of my toes. What a world we live in, eh?
And that’s the reason World Mental Health Day is an embarrassment to our society. We shouldn’t need it in the way we do. I’m happy to tell the story about licking a tent and getting dysentery, shitting myself half-to-death in a campsite toilet until a French doctor stabbed me in the bum with a needle. But I don’t talk about my me. That’s much too embarrassing.
We don’t have a World Shit Yourself Inside-Out Day or a World Broken Bones Day. Everyone does those things at some point. Everybody knows they suck. We’re okay with them. And the bigger scary things like cancer get their own day, to remind people that there are others less fortunate than them, struggling with some awful circumstances. These we talk about and spend serious money trying to prevent and cure. And the less severe stuff we can even brag and joke about. Breaking those three toes is one of my finest anecdotes.
World Mental Health Day isn’t like that. Its main purpose isn’t to remind others; it is to try to convince the people who suffer mental health issues that it is okay to talk about it. Their own. The stories that they don’t share. The stories that might be the story behind all the other stories. The ones they seek to hide or excuse or minimise.
I’m lucky. I have a great family, an inspirational and phenomenally patient wife-to-be, amazing kids, and life now is very different for me. I am not alone, and I can afford to choose not to talk about things that make me feel uncomfortable. I can and do when I need to. I’m extremely fortunate to have such a life.
But we shouldn’t live in a world where we need to tell people it’s okay to talk about their pain. It’s very far from fine that in any given year 25% of people suffer alone because there’s so much shame attached to suffering any other way. It’s reprehensible that mental health services are so underfunded that any talk of ‘breaking point’ is firmly in the past tense.
As a society, we spend millions on treating physical ills. If I were to guess, I’d say this is because we’re all aware that at some point we will die. Most people would like that to be later rather than sooner. They are to some extent or another afraid to die. But what about those who think sooner might be a welcome relief?
The truth is there are tens of millions of people in this country who are afraid to really live. The thing that scares them most is themselves. And by stigmatising them into remaining silent, we’re forcing them into an existence where ‘themselves’ is all they have.
It’s the same invisible social contract that means I can laugh over the story of the time I broke eight of my toes, but I don’t talk about the hourless, minuteless, boundless nights, the fear and panic and weird mania. Or the fact that while it’s obvious by this point that the story about my toes might not be strictly true, people might not stop to think the same about the one with the knife.
If you need to talk, find someone to listen. Even if you only do it so others can feel more confident in doing so themselves. I can all but guarantee you that the people who love you desperately want you to, even if they don’t know that yet.
Inaccurate Conception 