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Talking about your suffering - brave, or normal?

We have become programmed to restrict our dialogue about ill-mental-health. Don’t get me wrong, we’re a far cry from the closed off ‘man up’ times, but day-in-day-out, I see people described as ‘brave’ for having shared their story of mental trauma. Indeed, I myself recently described an acquaintance who had told all on their social media network that they were a depressive as “exceptionally brave”.  It is of course brave, but should it be?

I started this blog in January 2021, and the initial response was overwhelming and brilliant in equal measure, but I found myself pushed into silence soon after publishing a real-life account of what being in a depression feels like for me. Senior leaders within my former employer had suggested that, by talking so openly about my mental suffering, sharing with complete strangers the fact that I am, fairly routinely, suicidal, I was ‘limiting my career opportunities’ and ‘calling into question my reliability’. Bastards like these are the reason speaking out is brave.

To quote an over-employed metaphor, if you’re suffering from a physical illness, be that a broken leg or even in some cases, cancer, it’s obvious, there is seldom much need to tell people. And even when you do tell people, you are often simply met with varying degrees of sympathy dependant on the severity of your suffering. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of someone share that they are suffering with cancer, only to be met with a response doused in scepticism or a suggestion that their sharing this news is brave on the basis that it might cause prospective employers to have concerns about said individual’s employability. Of course, facing any kind of illness could easily, and rightly be described in this way, but just talking about it? No … that is reserved especially for the depressives and other mentally ill among us.

Disbelief, that is the central reason that even the most oblique reference to our neurological suffering is greeted with open-mouthed shock and met with metaphorical slaps on the back through the use of words like ‘brave’. Those who have followed this blog from the start may remember that, I have just one over-arching fear of sharing my story, and that is that I will not be believed. Even in my most desperate moments following my 2018 breakdown, I was stunned to find that people whom I thought to be amongst the most dependable and empathetic in my circle, didn’t quite believe me when I said “I am a depressive”.

Of course, the other reason is the attitude of people such as my pretentious, unsympathetic, archaic ex-employer. They (and others like them) are the enablers of a culture which encourages the suppression of feelings, the maintenance of the ‘taboos’ surrounding openness about anxiety, depression and other such conditions. For as long as employers, whatever their size and the nature of their operation, discourage openness in this area, the climb towards parity of esteem will become steeper yet.

Don’t get me wrong, we should not confuse the use of the word ‘brave’ by well-meaning friends, family members, colleagues or acquaintances, with employers abusing their power by deliberately silencing their employees who dare to speak of the unspoken. But both are a hindrance to progress in this space. I fear the battle with employers will continue long into the future, and our ability to impact this will be limited (particularly given the apathy in relation to cultural change around perception of ill-mental health, of the current occupant of 10 Downing Street), but we can make changes, changes that will allow us to work towards a society which sees openness about mental suffering not as brave, but as normal. What follows this is normalisation and what follows normalisation is, parity of esteem.

Be empathetic and be supportive and BELIEVE but remember, it isn’t brave, it’s normal.

 

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