David Beckham and mental health.....am I missing something?

[maudavery]

This is what DB in convo with Prince William has said about talking about one's feelings:

I made a mistake in '98 [getting sent off against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup] and the reaction at the time was pretty brutal.
"If social media was around when I was going through that time, it would have been a whole different story. But I was lucky, I had a support system within Manchester United, the manager, and obviously family.
"But did I feel it was okay at the time to go to someone and say I need help? No, because it was a different era, and I just felt that I had to keep it all in and deal with it myself.

So he cocked up, took flak for it and then "had to deal with it himself", although he acknowledges he had a lot of support. Is this so bad? Isn't this just taking responsibility? Isn't there a lot to be said for this kind of stoicism? Whereas now everything pathologised and we need therapy for everything.

I take his point about social media and agree it can be poisonous especially for younger people but I don't really think his point about having to deal with things himself is so terrible.

It's more that he is saying 22 years ago he dealt with it himself, whereas now he would seek therapy and talk about it more openly, and the narrative is that the latter approach is much better but perhaps the way he dealt with it at the time was ok, given he went on to Be ok.

Do you actually know he is ‘ok’ now though? Just because he has managed to carry on with his life and thankfully not commit suicide doesn’t mean that he isn’t still affected. People are very good at hiding mental health issues, they often feel they have to because, as has been shown on here, there is still a lack of understanding about them. In my experience it is always better to seek professional help rather than try to deal with issues yourself for good long term mental health.

Your attitude and views are really shocking and if I was you I’d be looking to change them as they are offensive.

I suppose, somehow you have to find the strength to turn off social media or it will destroy you.

Yes. But it’s so hard when social media provides both validation to people that they are worth something as well as them being worthless.

[quote maudavery]@TruffleShuffles it's not that I think he shouldn't talk about it. It's more that he is saying 22 years ago he dealt with it himself, whereas now he would seek therapy and talk about it more openly, and the narrative is that the latter approach is much better but perhaps the way he dealt with it at the time was ok, given he went on to Be ok. [/quote]
How do we know he’s ok though? So many people struggle to talk about their mental health and are very good at hiding their struggles. Just because someone appears to have a successful and happy life doesn’t mean that they are fine. We have no idea how bad he felt during that time And what he went through so I don’t think people should be so dismissive of what he says.

Do you actually know he is ‘ok’ now though?
This. I have a close friend who was recently diagnosed with PTSD. If you asked them if they had dealt with their 'issue/incident' ok when it happened, they would have said they felt they had. But it resurfaced years later. MH is complicated. It's messy. It has peaks and troughs. Unexpected issues can rear up years later and upend everything.

The "he is successful so he is obviously ok" is very similar argument to "he can't be depressed because he smiled when I saw him"...

I don’t think taking flack in the media you have courted after behaving badly in a football match is in anyway comparable to the suffering of children in this country.

So if someone is famous then its ok for people to make death threats, stalk someone, send bullets engraved with their name, threaten to kidnap and kill their children if someone feels they arent doing their job right?

It's not a race to the bottom. Nobody deserves to be abused, threatened or assaulted. It doesnt matter if you are a multimillionaire footballer or not.

I don't think having money was much consolation for Rachel Speed.

But how does this campaign help children struggling to get support? There is nobody to talk to.

But it might make them reach out to people they trust to say they have a problem in the first place if they see their idols talk about it. Making MH discussions entirely normal conversations is one of the first steps in improving MH provision.

I have anxiety and depression, I dont go into details with my DD but I have always been matter f fact about it, and to her MH is no different to physical health and she knows that if she is struggling with her own MH she can talk to me about it.

A friend of mine has depression but she refuses to talk about it and sees it as something shameful to be kept hidden. When her eldest daughter started struggling with her MH, she said nothing as she had grown up with the idea that MH issues were to be ashamed of and not talked about. It took her trying to end her own life rather than ask for any kind of help for my friend to realise that her daughter was scared to say anything because MH had such a negative stigma, that she herself had reinforced.

Children need to see people talking about it and normalising it.

Isn't there a lot to be said for this kind of stoicism?

Perhaps the nearly 5000 men who kill themselves every year just needed to be more stoic. More resilient.

There may be more publicly discussed things about mental health, but there is still a problem with men not asking for help. If two high profile men talk in public about when they needed help, that’s a good thing.

That you don’t think Beckham’s issue was something worth worrying about is exactly the reason people need to talk about what they needed help with. It isn’t up to the listener to decide that something isn’t problematic to someone else.

I don't understand why he couldn't access mh support if he needed it.
There's no such thing as a poor MU player
I'd feel more sympathy to maybe a lower down league player who couldn't afford to pay for treatment.

But, I agree, we do have to learn to cope with things ourselves.
I'm on a waiting list, will get a phone call until face to face again, and whilst I'm appreciative of the NHS, I can't see as a phone call will help much. Hardly going to bare your soul and talk openly on a phone.

Welll, there is being resilient and recognising that if you are wealthy and privileged whatever you are going through there are millions worse off than you. There is also being a 12 year old, forced to walk behind your mum's coffin live on TV in front of a global audience after she has died in horrific circumstances. I'm no fan of the RF but I remember watching the procession, thinking Harry looked utterly bewildered and feeling very sorry. I read that the day after she died they had to go to church with the rest of the RF and no mention was made of Diana due to protocol. How can those boys not suffer MH problems after that?

As for DB, as well as being hated and receiving death threats he had to listen to 'fans' chanting that they hoped his young son died of cancer, Aids and other delightful stuff.

I don't think all the wealth, fame, privilege and sense of self can protect you from struggling mentally in certain situations.

I don't understand why he couldn't access mh support if he needed it.

He clearly stated why.

See, right here:

"But did I feel it was okay at the time to go to someone and say I need help? No, because it was a different era, and I just felt that I had to keep it all in and deal with it myself."

I think we're interpreting OP's post in different ways and that's causing confusion and confrontation (from some).

I take it as saying that stoicism and resilience are a good first port of call. If they don't do the trick then, yes, access MH services, don't suffer in silence.

@AnneOfQueenSables

This post just highlights how misunderstood MH actually is Yy. It reminds me of Kim Kardashian's recent statement about people paying lip service to caring about MH but then not understanding how it impacts families, how difficult it is to access support even if you have money but a reluctant patient, how people enable it. An American journalist has also just written an article about how public reactions to 'famous' people having MH issues needs a rethink. It's in the context of Kanye but the points are valid here too. There shouldn't be any limit on compassion. Posters trying to make it a competition between rich and poor people; between famous people and ordinary people; well, you just fail everyone when you do that. Lots of people struggling with MH see their struggles reflected in the battles of famous people. Dismissing those struggles because they have money or fame, can feel like you're telling everyone with MH issues that they'll never meet the narrow and changing parameters that you define worthy of support and sympathy.

Yep.

The economic scales are much, much smaller, but I had a run-in with a friend a few years ago because I had the audacity to comment on my severe mental and physical health difficulties relating to a work situation. I made an offhand comment about wishing I'd taken the big pay cut into a more fitting career and got torn an absolute new one because another friend had lost her job, and that I should be happy to have one.

It was absolute BS. I had a much richer friend in the same group contact me supportively telling me that she'd had horrible tellings off about her financial situation when she often worked 100h weeks and was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Likewise I've been going through some stuff as I'm responsible for the survival of our company through covid, and it gives me sleepless nights. You can't buy your way out of the worry with the salary it pays, but without people like me doing the job, the employees would be stuffed.

Poor MH doesn't give a shit how much you're paid, and it actively feeds on how powerful you are when it comes to responsibility.

I'm not a particular fan of his, but I well remember this event and how he was treated and I doubt anyone could have dealt with that without it seriously affecting their mental heath!

He does also have ocd anyway so he may well have been referring to that too.

Regardless of that your attitude is shockingly ignorant and dismissive op.

"People coped in the past" no actually they didn't! They killed themselves or they ended up locked away!

My aunt has been doing our family history as a retirement project and it's incredibly sad the number of relatives that died young with disguised suicide conclusions on the death certificates (if there is one) and/or spent long periods locked in institutions.

That's on the "healthy" side of the family - the other side is riddled with addiction which was also ignored and normalised in the past.

Reading this thread I’m not surprised there is still a stigma around poor mental health and people are scared to ask for help

Agree except I'm totally unsurprised, mn alone is awful for it it's even worse elsewhere on sm.

I do think it is useful for celebs to talk about it as that will gradually help reduce the stigma but it's very very slow going.

And yes a big part of the problem is not having access to support, I've been ill almost 15 years, at no point in that time have I had all at the same time all the input that is the supposedly ideal treatment plan for me. I'm now under yet another psychologist who I'm working with and it seems to be going well so far (very early days) but that's only twice a month and no other support as yet, goodness knows how long it will be until I get that as it's been well over a year to get this far after having been "discharged" from the "service" basically because previous person was clueless and couldn't help me!

Whole other thread!

This is not unusual in my experience and that's 4 different nhs regions too.

@CheesyBalls hcps even mh ones can be among the least sympathetic, empathic and least helpful in my experience! I've had several basically say to me I wasn't getting better because I wasn't willing to!

I'm not sure men who served in the trenches of the Somme would have that much sympathy for young people who are upset by social media trolls. ODFOD!

All 4 of my grandparents served in wwii and one side of my family are all military going back 100's of years, they ALL had great sympathy and understanding of people suffering from mh issues, they may have described them using the language of their generation but they certainly wouldn't have told people suffering to just suck it up!

In addition I worked in elderly nursing for some years and again the vast majority were understanding and sympathetic to fellow residents or even staff they knew were suffering from mental illness and were heavily critical of the "stiff upper lip" mentality, many had either suffered themselves or been close to people who had and who'd died through suicide or been institutionalised.

Oh dear OP. You’re not coming across well at all

Understatement of the year!!

but what I am questioning is our approach. the back tracking is pathetic! What exactly do you mean by "our approach" ?

Because if you mean mh treatment I'd love to know what experience if any you have of that? Because it's certainly not "there there you poor thing yes you've been through an awful tragedy" or similar, when it's good, it's listening and understanding but NOT wallowing, it's finding ways to move past trauma, to deal with whatever mh condition you have.

The treatment that DOESN'T work is expecting patients to heal through sheer willpower!

Safe spaces originated in therapy group work that was designed to help people talk with rules that would prevent us being shamed and ostracised and practice coping skills together that we could use outside of it. It's been around for decades - I had it has a child in school - the recent misuse of concept shouldn't detract from that. I still use things I learned then.

The idea that kids today are all cosseted is also not new. I remember people saying the same when I was a kid - we were told it wasn't like we were going to drafted, what did we have to worry about. The issues in poverty, self-medication in the community, violence at home, caring responsibility on young shoulders, abuse, all that and more was largely ignored when not outright mocked in larger community. Shut up, pray, and if you're not alright, you need to take responsibility for yourself and get over it. I was lucky to get a few years of school-based treatment, many more could have benefitted. It's noticeable how many of my family and peers went onto continue self-medication as the solution.

No, I don't want more of that. Sure, it's possible to go too far the other way in rumination, that isn't healthy either, but silence changes nothing, for too many silence is acceptance when change is needed, and just accepting things silently is a very warped view of what actual stoicism is - unless you're recommending we all contemplate our deaths and be equally as silent and indifferent to the pleasures of our lives as well.

Your attitude and views are really shocking and if I was you I’d be looking to change them as they are offensive.

I don't think there is anything especially shocking or offensive about my views. All I am doing is questioning why we have such huge MH problems, which seem to be getting worse, when we talk about MH more than we ever have, and whether our approach needs to change slightly.

The book The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff asks similar questions, and endorses CBT as a really effective treatment for MH. Kathryn Ecclestone has also written extensively on this in her book the dangerous rise of therapeutic education which questions the value of a therapy culture in schools.

I take it as saying that stoicism and resilience are a good first port of call. If they don't do the trick then, yes, access MH services, don't suffer in silence.

But the OP is basing her thinking on David Beckham being ‘ok’ now so assumes that his stoicism and resilience worked for him and therefore may work for others. But we have no idea about the state of his mental health. People often hide mental health issues well because there still is a stigma around them unfortunately. Many people wouldn’t have sympathy for a good looking, rich ex footballer with a beautiful wife and expensive houses who holidays all over the world if he was constantly talking about his poor mental health. You’d get loads of people saying ‘what the fuck has he got to be depressed about?’ It’s wrong but it’s true. He could be depressed now for all we know and I don’t believe he would talk about it that much, he references his past but not his current mental health because he knows that he would get more shit if he was seen to be complaining.
However you word it, stoicism, resilience, stiff upper lip, it’s harmful and it’s just as harmful even if you are seemingly successful. How successful can a person actually be if their mental health is bad? Unfortunately many people measure success on peoples wealth which I don’t agree with. If I was not happy and had poor mental health then I wouldn’t feel successful. I think it can take a while for people to realise that happiness is the only measure of success that matters.
I don’t know anyone who has completely recovered from their mental health issues. Many have improved but I think it’s something that can always creep back in. The people who seem to be able to keep on top of their mental health issues are the ones that have seemed professional help.

I'm a bit that a lot of the responses questioning my attitude are based on the premise that DB must still be suffering poor MH 22 years on, when they're doesn't appear to be any evidence for this at all.

All I am doing is questioning why we have such huge MH problems, which seem to be getting worse, when we talk about MH more than we ever have, and whether our approach needs to change slightly.

I don’t think they are getting worse. If you talk to some open older people, they will tell you their struggles. They’ll also tell you that they were not encouraged to talk about them. Mental health problems are not a new thing, talking and being so open about them is. I don’t understand why anyone would encourage basically being a bit tougher and not talking about their mental health issues until it gets too much for them, which is what you’re doing.

There also really isn't much evidence he isn't. His image is highly curated, we know absolutely nothing about his mental state. It's been pretty well shown that high profile people who look okay can turn out to be anything but.

I had therapy in school back in the '90s. It was incredibly helpful as a child who had suicidal ideation, it helped me get through and prevented me turning to self-medication as many others around me did. Most of it didn't involve talking therapies though but activities to practice skills with each other.

People can say we're talking about mental health a lot, but the way it's spoken about is still fairly minimal and weak. Much like PE that mainly focuses on games without teaching fundamentals, discussing that mental health is important without giving opportunities to practice mental health skills is going to fail most. We currently don't have the funding or time for much else at the moment.

I'm a bit hmmthat a lot of the responses questioning my attitude are based on the premise that DB must still be suffering poor MH 22 years on, when they're doesn't appear to be any evidence for this at all.

I’m not saying he ‘must still be suffering’. I’m saying many people that appear ok are not ok. Have you really never known someone who has poor mental health but can put on an act or a mask and pretend they’re ok? I think most people I know have done this at some point whether it’s to their work or their kids or whatever.
What ‘evidence’ would you need that you would think someone had poor mental health? Would someone need to be crying or never smiling? A lady I know who has struggled with poor mental health for 30 years is often described as ‘bubbly’ and then life of the party’. Her reality is very different but she’s very good at hiding it from people.

I think that it just seems like MH is getting worse only because we are hearing about it more. I imagine that people have suffered from poor MH throughout the years, but that it was possibly very well hidden and not discussed as freely as people do now.

You certainly never would have heard about my own struggles from me. Even now I choose to disclose my own experience very, very rarely. I do know it is easier now to share than it was 15 years ago, but even though I didn't talk about it, it still happened.

So called fans were saying they would rape his wife and murder his kids. No exaggeration! Beyond awful. I think what he is trying to say is once he could get home he was sort of protected but had social media been as big as it is now he would have had no escape. His wife, children, family all being exposed to vile people over and over