To think posting pictures of yourself crying is literally a cry for help?

[JeezooosMaryandJoseph]

I want to make it clear that I am not making light of anyone’s mental health issues - and if that’s how this comes across, I apologise in advance. I also apologise if I don’t know the whole story.

To be honest though, I was a little eye-rolley about that woman that recently married Brooklyn Beckham this week when she posted a picture of herself on Instagram showing she was crying. I feel it’s a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who is living in desperate times (poverty being one of the main reasons).

I’m not saying for a second rich people can’t be upset but positing it on a site that thousands/millions of people can access feels a little bit wrong and self absorbed to me. AIBU?

Couldn't agree more.

I agree. It makes me cringe. I have teenage kids and my daughter is always showing me posts of her friends doing it. It’s attention seeking and pathetic.

Congrats on giving her exactly what she wanted from her post! She's playing you like a sad trombone.

It’s more widespread than I thought. I didn’t realise this was a ‘thing’.

I did chuckle about the comment a PP made about her looking at his photography book - and also the one about being married to him hasn’t exactly helped her career!

That's showbiz.

A mental health group I was in on FB used to have these sort of selfies all the time. They got called 'Struggle Selfies' and ended up being banned from being posted.
I have seen a few of my FB friends post them on their own feed too. One even posted a video of her sobbing after her horse had died.
I don't see the point in them.

@Deguster

We live in a time where someone being anxious = Anxiety. Someone feeling depressed = Depression. And so on and so forth. It’s absurd and it trivialises people who are actually struggling with their mental health. It’s all extremely self indulgent and I am sick of it.

Agree. There was a really good article related to this in the Financial Times of all places this week. Lucy Kellaway.

It wasn't quite saying that "generation snowflake" was to blame for the huge rise in anxiety among young people.

But it said there was a huge trend towards "self-diagnosis" which was leading a lot of young people to identify ordinary day to day misery, about specific, event-driven issues such as bad grades, family rows and relationship problems, as "depression" or "anxiety" and basically give themselves a pass to opt out of their responsibilities.

I've noticed a huge amount of this at the moment. I have three separate friends whose teenage kids are not going to school at the moment and simply being allowed not to go to school (I'm sure there's more to it than this and that the schools are in dialogue with the parents and counsellors etc, but the net effect is that they have all had months off school). I can't help feeling that saying "its just that their mental health is so bad" isn't really handling this.

I don't mean to be crass or unfeeling: I understand there has been a tidal wave of mental health problems affecting young people. And its good that the stigma around poor mental health has decreased and that young people with difficulties can talk about them. But I can't help feeling in the rush to classify everything as a "mental health crisis" we're actually decoupling the person from ordinary, albeit upsetting and difficult, emotions which they need to learn to cope with, and actually derailing the resilience of young people to cope with the things life throws at them.

That was a bit of a derail but I think its relevant...

YANBU OP.

It's hard to feel any empathy for desperately over-privileged attention seekers.

I have no idea what the young woman was upset about & you're very fair about having money not meaning you can't be upset. But genuinely upset people don't tend to organise a PR campaign & newspaper interviews about their upset, do they? Or leverage it for publicity.

@Thepeopleversuswork

that was actual my quote you tagged another poster in! Your article sounds v interesting - will find and read!

It’s not a cry for help. It’s a cry for attention.

@Giraffesandbottoms

Sorry!

Yes its worth a read. I would link but I don't think my subscription will allow me to do it. Its very measured and well thought out.

It's sickening how many people do it
That Louise Thompson is the worst

Well put and I agree with every word..

Completely agree with all the pps.
I've tried taking my life a few times, been in bed doing nothing but crying all day long every day for 5 months straight not at any point did it cross my mind to snap a selfie. Its just attention seeking pure and simple.
The constant over use of I've got anxiety and depression for every little upset just waters down the meaning for people who actually have it to debilitating levels, people think it's the same, it's not.
As for the self diagnosing, I've been sectioned at different times thinking that I'm an animal /god/have discovered the meaning of life yet people will try to tell me they have the same thing because they took an online test and it said so 😂😂😂

It shows that you're struggling with your mental health surely? A mentally well person wouldn't do that so yes, I would take it as a literal cry for help.

This. Social media is so fucking pathetic, and full of attention seekers

This. I tend to think that people who post about being terribly distressed, or who take time off for their 'mental health' or generally make a big song and dance about their emotions are the ones who are putting it on. The ones who actually do have shit mental health just get up and go to work and don't say anything to anyone. And it's the same with physical health. Those who really are ill will talk about it at a minimum and pretend all is well.
I'll fall apart at the tiny things (autism, give me a world crisis and I'm calm as anything) but I don't tell anyone; I'll shed some tears in the privacy of my own home and hope to hell no-one rings the doorbell while my eyes are puffy and I'm doing my impression of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I tend to think that people who post about being terribly distressed, or who take time off for their 'mental health' or generally make a big song and dance about their emotions are the ones who are putting it on.

You don't think people who get signed off due to mental health issues could be unwell?

I think it’s not uncommon nowadays. I see celebs doing it quite often - I think Haley Bieber did so recently too? I saw somebody on social media do it.

A few years ago I would have thought it was out of touch, pathetic, immature attention seeking. Now I’m a bit older (and hopefully wiser) I just think it’s really sad. If you genuinely feel you need to do that you must have a very very unhappy life. I just ignore it/unfollow and move on. Reminds me of when I saw another celeb (I think a kardashian or similar) say they would ‘do anything, even eat shit’ to look young/younger. When I was younger I might have thought ‘what a nut’ but now I just think ‘how awfully awfully sad.’

Yeah I don't follow anyone on IG and would scroll on past any "crying face" gone viral video - iirc there were loads during the pandemic from healthcare workers 😶. But if one of my 80ish FB friends posted one on their news feed I would take notice. Hasn't happened yet.

@XenoBitch

OMG you’ve just reminded me with your horse dying/crying post. I don’t suppose you (or anyone) saw that influencer that went viral? She was making a video of her young son (about 7/8 yo) after his pet had died. She was saying in a cross voice ‘come here! Cry, look sad. Put your head here like you’re hugging me.’ She kept saying ‘look sad, look sad’ and he was saying ‘mom I am sad!’ And she had accidentally left it on live and was broadcasting the whole thing. I think that’s like an emotional child abuse.

I know right!

No, generally I don't. It's too easy to trot to the doctors (assuming you can an appt) and claim stress / depression. I've seen too many people do it. There are posts on Mumsnet all the time about getting signed off for a few days or a week just for a break. It can't be proved either way so it's a great excuse. And it means that the people who genuinely do have high stress levels or depression still don't get any help or sympathy because we're all so sick of the time-wasters and fakers.

The ones who actually do have shit mental health just get up and go to work and don't say anything to anyone.

That's where you are wrong. If you can suck it up and go to work and not say anything to anyone then you don't have shit mental health. The ones with genuine shit mental health are either confined to their houses or on a psychiatrict ward. Or possibly wandering the streets jabbering away nonsense.
Also talking about it doesn't mean you don't have it.
I can talk about my experiences openly because I've had that much therapy and gone over it all a million times out loud it's not difficult to talk about it.

@Sunnyqueen

I went into the sector to help people like you, and to make a difference. The reality was the genuine folk were massively in the minority and I was met with a tidal wave of very indulgent young people who absolutely couldn’t get out of their own heads, or young people who misused drugs to such an extent they had made themselves ill.

SO SO many people have left the sector due to the above and quite possibly because people come to services expecting a magic fix or a magic pill is going to somehow “fix them”. No it’s not, you’re going to have to do some inner work which quite often is a long and arduous process which quite frankly does involve some effort.

I don’t think the mental health is like a broken leg rhetoric did anyone any favours. It’s absolutely not as simplistic as a bloody broken leg. Makes me cringe when I hear a person say it’s not their fault their “brain is broken”. 🤦‍♀️