Love Island Mike

[Nearlythere1]

Is anybody else sickened by the number of celebs piggy-backing on his tragic death? They're all out in force, posting videos of themselves crying and of course each one of them, as soon as the necessary condolences are out the way, launches into a story about themselves and their own problems. To the best of my knowledge, his "ex" who he was with for all of two minutes on the show, was one of the first posting about it, before his family had even made a statement. I do not think it was her place. Now Sheridan Smith has been getting her tuppenceworth in.

For fuck’s sake! Talking about mental health issues does not increase those mental health issues in others! It just means people are more open to talking about it!
Talking about suicide doesn’t mean there will be a rise in suicides but it might mean someone who is having suicidal thoughts finally confides in someone rather than suffer in silence.
And self harm is not some fashionable bandwagon. It’s a very serious symptom of deeper mental health issues and the more people talk about it and offer support the better.

The ignorance around mental health issues is astounding!

This young man couldn't bear to be alive anymore and you think that's glamourising suicide? Wtf?

The reason we need to talk about mental health is because we all have mental health as well as physical and yet it is still so much easier for anybody to say I have cancer than it is to say I have depression.

@TheDarkPassenger
That’s rough am sorry that’s your experience

I wonder with things such as anxiety that we have become such a sedentary society with the internet and so much less need to be physically active unless we choose to be that it’s an excess of fight or flight adrenalin that we are not using and is circling around our bodies causing panic attack’s and anxiety coupled with the pressure to be “perfect” and have a “perfect” lifestyle.

@ladyvimes

I am speaking as someone with a wide knowledge of working with people with mental health issues and so am only commenting what my observations and experiences have been.

It's horribly sad but looking at the photos of him, I wonder how much of a part steroids had to play in his mental health issues. The side effects are horrendous, and it seems very normal for young men these days to be gym and body obsessed.

I completely agree about the other "slebs" jumping on the grief bandwagon. If they were genuinely sorry they'd be contacting his family away from the media. Sadly his funeral will be like a Z list convention. Rest in Peace Mike

I think there’s a difference between talking about MH in general, especially among the “well” population, and being the person who has to go to their boss and say “I need support at work / time off, because my anxiety has flared”.

We might have more words for it, we might all think it’s normal now and not a weakness... but how many people who desperately need a break due to mounting stress would say so, instead of lying and calling in with flu?

I do agree with your point about normalising and copying. But I don’t agree with those who think it is talked about enough.

I am not sure - my husband is in a male dominated “macho” profession and has had excellent support.

*with his mental health issues sorry.

The only difference with self-harm is that people are realising what it is and being more open about it. I started self-harming in the early 1970s and am still cutting. The only time I went for help in desperation the empty A&E department treated me as though I was a time-wasting attention-seeking drama queen. I still don't know where to ask for help when I'm desperate and think that I just won't turn the car at the next bend - it all seems that charities like the Samaritans and SANE are left to deal with desperate people.

@NorthernLurker I don't think his suicide as such is glamourising it.

The cling ons constantly talking about it, and posting this handsome looking mans pics is.

I personally think by normalising and glamourising it, kids wont realise that suicide is final. It's not a magazine article... it's not a Instagram post with thousands of likes. Its final.

My mum killed herself 27 years ago when I was 16, my husband has been in hospital for 6 years because of mh - so I am all for people talking about mental health.
BUT it does seem with reality stars that they don't get the column inches and daytime interviews (which pay their bills) if they don't have anxiety, depression etc.
Why do a lot of them have it? Because they have been thrust into the limelight from obscurity and their lives literally changed overnight. Yes they chose to go on a programme but don't the programme makers have a responsibility for after care?
Imagine being able to go to your local supermarket and looking a bit scruffy one day - then within a month or so your face is plastered over the papers and internet discussing your weight, your family, your finances - its how it is now but its a fucking disgrace.

If it saves one more person from taking their life I don't care who jumps on and uses it for publicity.

We all have mental health, we all need to be aware sometimes it's good, other times it's not. And we all need to be more aware of those around us be it strangers or families and reach out with an ear to listen.

I'm sickened by the programmes. They chew people up and spit them out. Much like social media, wanting to go on these programmes smacks of raging insecurity and the reality must feel so hollow. I think the programmers know enough now about how they impact people and they need to make a change.

We live in a very social media driven world now so this is nothing out of the ordinary.

Poor fella and his family.

According to reports, he’d recently moved in with his grandmother to be her full time carer. That breaks my heart, not many 26 year old men would do that. Shame we never got to see that side to him. Another report I read said an old football teammate said he was the first to congratulate him on becoming a father.

So sad to think that whatever he was going through he was battling alone, and this seemed like the best option.

Only a couple of the celebs I have seen post about it have seemed attention seeking or insincere. Most i’ve Seen are just paying respects to him and condolences to his family, a lot even say “I didn’t know him well but...” I don’t know him myself nor could I call myself a fan but I’m upset about it, it makes me feel funny. I’ve a brother his age.

His ex Megan McKenna is yet to comment on it. I imagine she will be genuinely devastated, supposedly she cried when talking about their breakup on celebs go dating. Still, I can picture her using this for musical material to further her career and position herself as some kinda tragic romantic, similar to Ariana Grande. Not dismissing her genuine pain though.

Overall just a terrible thing to happen, an atrocious waste of life.

I totally agree op but am not sure what the answer is. It is deemed to be irresponsible to report too many details about suicide as it does seem to be contagious and that is how some places end up with suicide clusters of mostly young people.
There has been a lot of stigma about MH problems in the past but surely there is a middle ground between that and it being glamourised by celebs.
DS1 went through a self harm phase of cutting and I'm pretty sure that if he'd been born 20 years earlier it wouldn't have happened. I think we are in danger of medicalising normal unpleasant life experiences, I work in mental health and we are seeing this more and more.

Very sad. I don’t watch them but would think that these type of shows probably attract people with existing mental health issues.

Minglemangle that was my thought. It's all looks, popularity wealth based and deep down probbaly not very happy. It is very sad but I don't think the show itself is to blame. Perhaps contributed slightly but not entirely to blame. There have been loads of shows of a similar vein as Love Island.

Mental health is being talked about in terms of general anxiety and depression but I have schizo affective disorder & I feel there is very much a stigma around that as you get psychotic symptoms & have to take anti psychotics. As well as bipolar symptoms.

It's a lot easier to lie & just pretend I have depression for example.

I'm sad about Mike T's death & also Keith Flint, its a shame they had no one to turn to.

I watched Mike on LI and thought he was a bit of a knob - or the character he portrayed was. But, what struck me today was when I saw his DOB, he was about the same age as my DS, I'd never thought of him as being a peer of my own son, he seemed much older. What a waste of a young life.
I think there may be more to it behind why he moved in with his Nan. Apparently he was broke, so maybe behind on rent and evicted? Maybe didn't have the money to invest in the new restaurant business, but had talked as if he did? I can't imagine a 26 year-old man taking over the personal care of his 94 year-old gran. I wouldn't have expected my DS to have done that when my DM was terminally ill, just seems odd.
Everything to do with the lives of reality TV people is a façade. Everyone assumes they've got loads of money to spend on property, cars, holidays, but it's all rented, loaned, given by sponsors.
Yes agree with OP about other 'celebs' commenting on social media, the most odd was by Katie Salmon, who's now vowing to open a mental health charity. She was also referred to a Sophie Gaydon's ex - FFS they 'coupled-up' on LI, trying to be controversial by breaking the M/F couple norm.

I read something recently about a fellow ‘celeb’ who started with a condolence and said something like ‘I’ve just looked and I can’t believe I have no picture of us together’...... not such a great friend then eh.

I agree with you OP - it’s sickening how some people could turn this absolute tragedy into something all about themselves.

I used to run a support service for teenagers and wherever there was a storyline in a soap or something featuring self harm “raising awareness” we would see a rise in self harm

Is it not much more likely that seeing self harm portrayed on tv made them more likely to seek oit help or support for pre existing conditions rather than start self harming?

Whilst saddened by his death, I can't say it's shocked me to the core. He always had an unhappy, troubled air about him.

I hope his family find some comfort in each other.

I'm not talking about glamourising suicide and self-harm, or copy-catting as such. I'm talking about a fundamental shift in how we have come to view ourselves and our options.

A sociologist called Durkheim did a study of national suicide rates in the 19th century to show how social forces influence what seems to be an extremely personal decision. So for instance, suicide rates in Japan were very high because it was seen as an honourable thing to do in some circumstances. Conversely, in Catholic countries where suicide is considered a mortal sin, the rates were tiny. The point is that social forces and how people understand themselves and their options have huge bearing on what appears to be an intimate decision. I think that the current focus on the crisis of mental health is creating the very crisis it's trying to help.

On a grand scale, suicide is a problem of society, less so than the individual in ways.