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.

Also bird therapy by joe harkness

It might have a role, alongside all other personal health care like nutrition and movement, but it's obviously not a solution. If it was, then those who spent most of their time outdoors as kids wouldn't have become mentally ill (so most kids for most of history) and so many communities known for being outdoors a lot wouldn't have such a strong history of addiction. Nature can be a personal health tool, but it isn't a mental health skill and some communities would need better access to that and a whole lot more.

There is no one piece fix. Even Guy Winch's Emotional First Aid, which is one of the top books on this topic, discusses at length that we need a first aid kit of tools, not everything gets a bandage. He does discuss the issue of rumination, thinking about the bad over and over, and i think that's what too many schools are doing on the topic - they talk about it a lot, tell kids to talk if they need it, but they rarely move on to the skills or what in the environment contributes to it. Taking care of yourself, including going for walks, is a skill, but there are a lot of others and without environmental changes, it becomes obvious lipservice that can make mental illness worse. Having adults you're meant to trust essentially lie to you makes things worse, it causes instability.

Without those skills, mental illness pretty much becomes a bogeyman. I've heard kids trying to one up each other on things because for them, having seen adults take it so unseriously for the amount they talk about it, that's what it is - a way to show how adult they are and/or cover up what they're going through because everyone knows you can't get actual care for these things. There is an issue with catastrophizing emotions, but it isn't that discussing them at all is bad, it's that we still make it emotionally-charged in a negative way to talk about it. Therapy Culture makes any talking about it something big when we could just discuss negative emotions just like we talk about how the weather sucks or how annoying a scraped knee is.

There is a balance between getting on with everything by ourselves (which, again, isn't what Beckham said) and everything needing micromanaged. Prescribing nature is micromanaging.

Thank you @BiBabbles I will order that book immediately and begin "educating myself"

I guess Beckham and Prince Harry have their troubles but they ain't gonna be on no waiting list for sure.

Whilst I welcome increased mental health coverage in media as a suffer myself.

I am not sure that all the celebs who purport to have it do, and aren't using it to further their careers, and before you say why would someone , people have used lots of causes to further theirselves.

That said anyone suffering should get hope but since covid it's fell through floor.

I don't think young people are necessarily 'brainwashed' into thinking they need help etc as a PP mentioned but have to admit I am surprised at the number of 20 somethings I know who take medication for anxiety. It does seem to have risen exponentially over the last decade or so. Being anxious isn't always a bad thing...sometimes it's just, well a thing, and you need to recognise it's how you feel and deal with it. I wonder if it is sometimes confused with simple nervousness and the proliferation in 'anxiety' meds makes people think they have to reach for something to calm them down rather than the coping mechanisms we were previously taught to employ.