To find many of the Mental Health champions, such as Bryony Gordon, actually not good for mental health!

[Sethy38]

It’s relentless....

Be kind to yourself
Say no
Self care
It’s ok to feel shit
Love yourself
Be yourself
The power of positive thinking
You go girl
You got this

And so on. And on.

I actually find it quite stressful! And then interjected with “sorry I didn’t post yesterday, I cried for four hours straight on my bedroom floor but I got through it and now I’m ok. And YOU WILL BE TOO”.

Having mini breakdowns aren’t really an option for single working parents.

There’s a heck of a lot to be said to be gritting your teeth, head down, ploughing on, but to so many of the Mental Health campaigners that approach is something to be scorned!

Anyone else a little by it all?

@sevencontinents

Perhaps reread my OP

I’m not saying that what she advocates doesn’t work

I’m saying that the approach is underpinned by a very evident... and if you don’t self care etc then you are buggering up your mental health.

And therein lies my irritation with the approach.

Can't imagine how on earth this Bryony Gordon was able to get so high profile, I mean it's not as though her mother...oh hang on...

YANBU. BG can be quite a bully (have first-hand experience of this) and I'm not sure she really appreciates how privileged she is. I feel pretty shit in comparison to her and it certainly doesn't help my mental health to see her spouting off. She's wealthy, fit despite abusing her body for years (can run marathons), has so much love and support from her endlessly patient family.

@sevencontinents

You're wrong, I have had a breakdown. But crying in your bathroom for 4 hours is not a breakdown it's a pressure release. And my pressure releases have to last about 4 mins not 4 hours. My comment was tongue in cheek, though. Unlike the moments of silent screaming and secret panic attacks.

Fundamentally alcoholism is a selfish disease and generally the answer to it is not to find a platform for your ego but to find a path to humility and community. She strikes me as somebody who is very 'young' and vulnerable in her recovery, and I think that a lot of people regret over sharing and over exposing themselves in early recovery. Except they do that within an anonymous space or to a therapist not for anyone to read. It's this kind of shouty recovery with an evangelical zeal that is often very fragile, because it's egotistic. Most lasting recovery is not in "performance recovery" IME

Only they have to last 4 mins not 4 hours because that's all the time I've got.

Shit like this is irritating and why people don’t take people with mental health issues seriously.

[quote Chalkcheese]@sevencontinents

You're wrong, I have had a breakdown. But crying in your bathroom for 4 hours is not a breakdown it's a pressure release. And my pressure releases have to last about 4 mins not 4 hours. My comment was tongue in cheek, though. Unlike the moments of silent screaming and secret panic attacks.

Fundamentally alcoholism is a selfish disease and generally the answer to it is not to find a platform for your ego but to find a path to humility and community. She strikes me as somebody who is very 'young' and vulnerable in her recovery, and I think that a lot of people regret over sharing and over exposing themselves in early recovery. Except they do that within an anonymous space or to a therapist not for anyone to read. It's this kind of shouty recovery with an evangelical zeal that is often very fragile, because it's egotistic. Most lasting recovery is not in "performance recovery" IME [/quote]
Absolutely nailed it. Every word.

My father died an alcoholic. It is not surviving cancer. It is not emerging from a bereavement. It destroys the lives of those around them.

Sethy just because some people on a Mumsnet forum agree with you doesn't mean that everyone does!

And I think you are projecting your experience onto others and forgetting that there are other struggles out there that are different to yours but also valid (caring for a parent, a disabled child, trauma etc etc). There is so much of this 'oh look how privileged they are, they can't be struggling as much as me'. And when I say you don't know her experience, I mean, you don't know what goes on in her head. And that's the problem with MH struggles generally. You can't SEE it and so people judge it.
I think though, that we will have to agree to disagree here...whatever the case, I think we all agree that care for mental health is WOEFUL.

I do think sentiments like these are patronising in their simplicity and minimise the complexities of mental illness. But they are all things that I didn't do or think when I was at my lowest and which I still struggle with even though I'm getting better.

In my experience, the stiff upper lip approach generally only gets you so far and burying your emotions rather than acknowledging them can cause deeper issues in the long term. Like PPs have said though, societal problems mean a lot of people don't have the luxury of time or money to address their well-being so do just have to grit teeth and get on.

God, yes, some of it is annoying. Molly Gunn/Selfish Mother posted from a "self care" wine-and-yoga solo trip to Ibiza a couple of years ago. All very nice if you can up and leave your business, 3 small kids and (working) husband at no notice.

The problem with Bryony Gordon is that she is making money off being a selfish twat and her years of self destructing. I read her article where she details how she was off her tits on drugs and alcohol when she had a newborn and used to abandon the poor baby to go out partying with her mates and get coked up. The whole tone of the article was ‘poor little me’ and ‘I’m such a survivor to get through this’ it gave me such a rage reading it. Imagine her poor daughter in years to come reading that? How absolutely awful. Well done for getting clean and all that but that sort of behavior should not be celebrated, and certainly not written about for thousands of faceless strangers to read about.

Frankly I couldn’t stand any of her twaddle knowing what a selfish woman she is.

It is ok to feel shit on the other hand, when feeling shit, it's ok to tell yourself to get a grip and crack on with being a parent, doing your job or whatever else you need to get on with. I would have an issue with someone else telling me to do this but I often find it useful when said to myself!
I'm not happy with the whole 'resilience thing. Just another stick for people to beat themselves with. "It's my fault I have mental health problems. I'm just not resilient enough!"

Having mini breakdowns aren’t really an option for single working parents

I do have days when I flop and take my bed like a Victorian

What helps me weirdly is my kids
I have to get up
I have to work
I make myself attend parenting classes
I have to force myself

For example yesterday was a shocker , and I made myself exercise with each child individually , and it helped , felt calmer
I wonder if I’d been single would I have done that ? Maybe not
Maybe I’d have hit the wine and Valium

My children exhaust me and stress me (and I love them to death) but they are THE major incentive to take practical mental health actions

Not that I’m minimizing her mental health struggles, I just don’t agree that she is a good voice/advocate for what she is spouting with all the self care nonsense

I get what you are saying op. For some it is better to pull themselves together and grin and bear it rather than naval gazing and crying for hours or whatever. Especially if as you say you have a job where you don’t get sick pay, 3 kids and rent to pay.

I needed to read this today because I’m struggling at the moment and downloaded BG’s new book to listen to thinking all my worries would melt.

Personally these sorts of books set me up to fail and end up like a stick to beat myself with when inevitably they don’t help and I take it as a fault in myself. And so on!

If they work for someone that’s great but I need to learn that they just don’t for me. I’ll stick to podcasts and crafting which I know are my crutch. So rock’n’roll these days.

Sorry not abandoning - got to do dinner etc!

Mental health first aiders

I sat next to one when I was having a social services investigation leading to a highly toxic split

Stupid bint didn’t say ONE word

And I did cry and disappear into the quiet room /toilets many a time

On the main I can’t stand MH campaigners

We all /most have MH issues and many of us just crack on as best we can

And I ask for help and am lucky 🍀 that I’ve been given it , to be fair

@Thisisworsethananticpated

We have mental health first aiders at work. Perfectly lovely people but, as someone with a history of mental illness, the last people I would turn to in a crisis!!

I don't actually know who Bryony Gordon is.

I have serious mental illness Schizoaffective disorder mixed type & im sorry but 'gritting my teeth & having a stiff upper lip' isn't an option when your on the top dose of your anti psychotics but your still getting symptoms like hallucinations & hearing others voices.
Also when you are overwhelmed with the negative symptoms of feeling flat with depression it's hard to care about life at all.

And when you feel so paranoid that everyone's out to get you it's awful. Or feel that everything is unreal, or that you're actually invisible, or that people can hear your thoughts.

I'm sad I don't have children but it's probably a good thing because I would need A LOT of support to care for them properly if I was ill myself.

It's true that tiredness & stress do exacerbate the symptoms of this illness.

The stupid thing is you'd never pick me out of a group of people as being the one who has this disorder.
I work 3 8 hour shifts a week as an HCA and make a big effort to shower & work hard on those days which really is a struggle & affects me on the other days and the only thanks I get is that certain of my colleagues who don't know about my illness think I'm lazy because I work pt & don't work 12 hr shifts or nights!!

But my illness is not the kind of thing you can tell people about.

I agree OP.

I work in digital marketing so very cyclical person anyway I made up this type of content for places I worked because I know it gets a response it may have started out genuine but there is money to be made when lots of people react so naturally aot of people roll with it and Instagram needs more content if you are to stay relevant so I'm sure a lot of it is just made it to make sure you don't fall down the pecking order with the algorithms

I also have CPTSD I have to take a deep breath and get on other wise nothing would get done and at times it can make me selfish and/or irrationally I have to take responsibility for that not pandered to or told it's fine every time I have an emotional outburst and go take a bath I deserve it.

No what I need is to access talking therapy not be patronised and written another subscription for tablets

seven continents I think you are right.

Princess Diana was privileged. But she still had a breakdown of sorts. It isn't about hot baths and spa treatments and nannies to help is it, it is about your own feelings of self-esteem.

You can be poor live in a mud hut you can have no hot water no luxuries and have loving supportive people around you who make you feel your own worth, because you have a "sense of agency".

I think the reason Bryony tells us about her patient husband and mother is because they are people who make her face up to the idea that she is loveable without the alcohol and highjinxx. It jars because we think it is unfair she had all this love and support. But why would it be ",unfair", any more than it would be unfair of us to complain of being sad and anxious despite having friends and parents or partners? It isn't a question of stacking up the advantages...maybe something else in your lived experience is counterbalancing those "advantages"...trauma, childhood, your own skills or otherwise, a pandemic, who knows?

I wonder whether it depends on where you are in your recovery. If you are still waiting for therapy and treatment, I imagine that messages of self care must be irritating - if that worked you wouldn't need therapy and/or medication.

But if you are post therapy, understand your condition and what triggers it then the meessages help? Because if I were asked how I live with my condition, my answer would be self care. Not the £15 000 holiday self care, but getting up early to exercise, making certain career choices to balance work and child care, grabbing a cuppa whilst the kids have some extra tv etc. BUT that would not work if it weren't for all the therapy I have had. It keeps me well but it didn't make me well. So to me, BG-s message seems ok but 10 years ago...who knows.
.

Yes I agree that gritting your teeth won't help, but IME nor do bubble baths or spa days. What we need is a reliable multi faceted mental health care response which is not just in times of peak crisis but ongoing support. Meds, talking therapies, group work, etc. all play their part. All too often people get fobbed off with medication, or have a crisis response but no ongoing support. It's shocking honestly. And reading books is not going to fill the whole gap, it can't.

I think I just prefer it when people are honest and not pretending to be perfect all the time. Byrony Gordon's books are very honest and forthright, and as some who's husband has addiction issues, I really appreciate that.