To struggle to believe people who say they’ve “never thought about their mental health”?

[HeartyCyanEagle]

I recently read an interview with Joan Collins where she said “I never have thought about my mental health, ever. My mental health is perfect.”

I find statements like that fascinating more than anything. Not because I think everyone must be mentally ill, be traumatised or constantly analyse themselves. But because being human inevitably involves stress, grief, insecurity, anxiety, emotional conflict, disappointment, loss, fear etc at some point.
I also sometimes wonder whether older celebrities/public figures from certain generations define “mental health” very differently altogether.

For example, Joan Collins has obviously lived an extraordinarily dramatic/public/emotionally eventful life across decades - multiple marriages, fame, pressure, heartbreak, public scrutiny etc, which is partly why I find the idea of someone never having reflected on their mental health genuinely fascinating.

So when people say they’ve literally never thought about their mental health, I sometimes wonder whether it reflects generational attitudes, repression/stoicism, different definitions of mental health, image management or genuinely just a very psychologically resilient temperament.

AIBU?

You're very shouty. Do you feel un-heard?

If that’s to me it was a joke 🤣 I was agreeing with you

you're joking, right?

unless you were super rich, there were no chidminders, no banking apps, you actually had to go to the bank, no washing machines, hoovers, etc. Didn't they achieve anything? they worked, just different jobs. You being on teams isn't much contextually different to them typing. Everyone's on teams today, everyone was typing or working in a factory then.

ETA: as to no emotional load - this is a perfect example of the topic of this thread. They lived their lives, you're taking it as emotional load. There was no welfare then, you had to cope with "emotional load"

Let's all have a moment's silence for Schrödinger's WWII, simultaneously traumatising and resilience forging.

Plus they had to do that without contraception, no understanding of period difficulties or menopause, very few rights in the workplace etc.

My nan (born in 1926) worked 4 hours a day as a school dinner lady.

her entire adult life.

no, she wasn’t anywhere near as capable as me. Not even 10% tbh.

Tbh considering that you describe a teams call, using a banking app and making dinner as a difficult life I'm not sure your as capable as you think you are

no, you just misunderstood the point of the example.

If we’re all misunderstanding, and it seems we are; you’re just not putting your point across very well 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm not sure JC is necessarily a beacon of resilience and is potentially just bullshittinf, but as many have said negative emotions are not poor mental health

I also think that even if you do struggle to cope with things like grief or stress that many wouldn't consider that poor mental health. If I was very stressed I would just consider myself to be very stressed. "Mental health" is a pretty broad, and vague term

People with mental health illnesses have real biological differences in things like brain structure, neural programming, neurotransmitters and hormone functioning. It’s not just feeling a “bit depressed” or whatever. Often the subjective mood has very little basis in emotions that are a direct response to everyday situations, which is why so many people struggle to explain why they feel depressed/anxious/OCD/whatever when objectively everything is fine.

I think it is a generation thing. I don’t think I heard the term ‘mental health’ mentioned in normal conversation until sometime in the 1990s, so I don’t believe many people would have thought about it before then.

well said

People with mental health illnesses have real biological differences in things like brain structure, neural programming, neurotransmitters

No they don't.

Hormones maybe. No one knows enough about hormones. But their brains aren't physically different. It's not a physically observable illness.

so you can’t imagine or appreciate the potential impact on your brain from constantly switching roles/ tasks/ operating different pieces of complex machinery, frequently doing 2 + things at once that require attention to detail and concentration, constant multi tasking, being responsible for multiple different people/ deliveries and having so much time pressure applied so frequently?

you think the human brain doesn’t feel any impacts of that, despite that fact people who were born 100 years ago did almost none of it, let alone at once?

I’m finding it a bit weird that you think I describing my afternoon and how taxing it all is.

I am simply describing a couple of hours, after “clocking off” the day job, in modern life. Fill with any similar examples of stressors you like.

I’ve never really thought about my mental health. I’ve felt negative emotions, but never disproportionate to the circumstances I was facing and never in a way I felt I wouldn’t overcome them or naturally feel better in a relatively short time frames

Normal emotions are not an indicator of mental health issues (despite feeling anxious and having anxiety now being interchangeable terms).

no, she wasn’t anywhere near as capable as me. Not even 10% tbh.

She coped with air raids, rationing, (including fuel), probably having family members serving in the forces. She lived her life without a car, a telephone, central heating, a fridge freezer, a microwave, an automatic washing machine.

And you dare to say she wasn't capable.

Still struggling to get your point, to be honest.
I do all that shit, as I imagine most people on the thread do, I still have no mental health issues.
That stuff is normal, you aren’t Superwoman, you know?

She was deeply traumatised by the war- despite posters here suggesting no one was impacted by it because they were all so mentally robust.

she had no choice though did she? It wasn’t capability it was life circumstances. And it impacted her behaviour for the rest of her life.

not sure what lack of car or microwave has to do with capability though.

You have no mental health problems right now, anyway. Who knows what your future holds

In years to come there will be studies done about how the internet has created more work for us.

Ofc those studies will be done by robots, after apps, bots and chat gpt have reduced us all to gibbering shells.

.....operating different pieces of complex machinery

Those women who 'only' worked in factories did that. They might have been making aeroplanes or tanks or guns or munitions - and in the case of munitions workers, risking their health and their lives.

The women 100 years ago were sending their sons, husbands, boyfriends and fathers to be killed in the millions. The men were literally sent to murder other young innocent men. They dealt with food rationing, regular bombing and destruction where they lived and sending their children to live with strangers so they wouldn’t be killed by bombs in their sleep.

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’d snatch your hand off for the perils of working at a computer, multitasking and working under time pressure.

There’s a huge difference between having a bad day and not getting out of bed for three weeks