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?

No, it isn’t.

we all feel like this at times. Every single person. It's normal part of life. Some have much more challenging circumstances than the others.
It's not mental health issue. It's reaction to stressors.

Doesn’t this describe every 17 yr old who starts a degree though, they don’t know anything about corporate life etc, they learn by doing and being immersed in the environment.

I am in senior leadership in a global organisation, running cybersecurity for approx 10,000 employees and millions of end-users. I have no formal qualifications beyond some really poor A-levels, I learn everything by doing it and looking it up. I have a child and returned to full time work when she was 9months old. I’ve experienced major tragedies, lost both parents before I was 30…..

I do not consider my mental health. I experience and live through a range of emotions but that’s normal life. I don’t think my life is any harder than previous generations we just have different types of hard to deal with. I’ve never had to figure out how to feed 5 kids with limited funds like my gran had to do. I have the convenience of being able to nip to the shops in my car and get everything in one place, I don’t have to walk or navigate a slow bus route to 5 different shops to get it all. Private nursery provision is accessible, before and after school clubs exist so I don’t have to curtail my working hours to school hours only…..

a few years ago one of my neighbours was telling me that she ended up in a HA flat because she divorced her husband and at the time she wasn’t allowed a mortgage or bank account without a husband to sign off on it, so she wasn’t unable to purchase a house for her and her kids even though she was working and could have afforded it.

Environmental/Social/contextual pressures have always existed they have just changed over time.

He took a day off sick, for "mental health reasons".
And I had to put this on the system, before going back to hospital to see my terminal DH.

But reacting in a proportionate way to a trigger isn't cause to consider your mental health is it?

I've never really had mental health issues but that doesn't mean I haven't been sad, anxious, stressed etc when I've experienced things that temporarily invoke those responses.

Some great responses on this thread. Nothing to add as I would only echo what the majority of the first half of PP have said.

Until 10 years ago I can honestly say that I never thought my ‘mental health.’ I had all the usual mix of emotions including sadness, grief, disappointment, worries but they were just part of the ups and downs of a life well lived. Then I was hit by a crippling episode of debilitating panic and anxiety out of the blue and all of that changed. From the outside no-one would realise but I’ll never be 100% confident in my mental health again. I’d love to be able to go back to the me where it just wasn’t a thing.

They didn’t really achieve or do anything though did they? Housewives, working in a factory, maybe the typing pool. Cleaning the house.

It depends what you mean by "achieve anything." Working in a cotton mill/factory contributed to the economic wealth of the country. They paid taxes and raised children, just as we are doing now.

not really a hard life is it? There was no emotional load

Oh come on! Working in a mill/factory was much harder than taking a bloody teams call on your mobile. Of couse they made dinner. They just didn't call it mental load. It's just life.

citing : stress, grief, insecurity, anxiety, emotional conflict, disappointment, loss, fear

all these are normal mentally healthy health not mental illness
I too think like Joan Collins

Citing : 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.

all of the above. My inner life is not your fucking business.

I suffered a period of acute anxiety that was noticeably different from normal good mental health.

Good mental health is like physical health. Feeling sad when something sad happens is no different to one's heartbeat increasing when you exercise - the correct physical/mental reaction.

My anxiety was triggered by prolonged harassment by an ex-colleague. My brain remained on high alert permanently, reacting to normal events as fear stimuli. That was poor mental health.

In fact, I was earlier prescribed SSRIs for migraines, and came off them because they seemed to make me feel giddy/upbeat when that wasn't the correct thing to feel (I had no MH problems at the time). When I used SSRIs to treat actual anxiety they worked correctly.

I work in a mental health field, and I would love to see more clarity of language where emotional wellbeing is concerned.

I do see an increase in serious mental heath issues (not psychosis / schizophrenia , but severe anxiety and OCD), and much more trouble forming friendships and relationships among people in their 20s and 30s who grew up with smartphones - thanks in large part to social media, 24/7 news, the pressure all the time to be on show and on record and 100% unshakeable in your opinions and identity, etc. (Not to mention the impact of Covid, the economy, the environment, AI, perpetual war, etc.)

I also see a lot of people in this age range who say that something is ‘affecting their mental health’ any time something upsets or disappoints them. Sure, some people will say this manipulatively, but most people who throw the term ‘mental health’ around this way genuinely do seem to believe that experiencing unpleasant feelings is harmful and damaging.

I think in our legitimate concern about the emotional wellbeing of young people over the last 20 years, and our framing of every conversation about mood in terms of mental health, we’ve given people the impression that you can only be mentally healthy if you feel steady and comfortable and positive and productive all the time, with nothing challenging you and nobody disagreeing with you.

People with this worldview develop less resilience to the grief, loss, rejection, precarity, failure, etc that are part of life for everyone, and feel interactions that are short on praise or validation as an attack and an existential threat. If you understand the experience of disappointment or sadness as detrimental to your health, then the friend who cancels on you at short notice or the lecturer who gives you a low mark might as well have punched you in the face and knocked your teeth out.

I’m sure there may be a massive swathe of people out there with a reasonable and nuanced view but I don’t tend to meet them in my work!

"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."

But none of those are health conditions. They're just life. A mental health condition to me is depression, ADHD, OCD, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia etc.

A mental health condition to me is depression, ADHD, OCD, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia etc.

ADHD aside, all of those so called illnesses are just people experiencing life and other people telling them they're experiencing it wrong. There really isn't a big line in the sand between mental illness and not mental illness.

What happened to the OP?

I never think about my “mental health either”. Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes stressed and sometimes a bit down. But those aren’t mental health issues.

Why is ADHD not other people telling you you are experiencing life wrong? I think you could describe it as that. Many people don't even consider it a MH condition (it's technically a neurodevelopmental disorder).

Also worth remembering, goimg a bit further back, that it was women working in factories during WW1 that helped prove their equal worth to men and pave the way to women getting the vote.

So easy to minimise and take these things for granted from a 21st century perspective.

Exactly, it's neuro. All those other ones you list, aren't. There isn't a neuro basis for them. You just get the label if the behaviour matches.

I agree with this. I'm late 30's, i've experienced grief, break up, disappointment etc during my life but I wouldn't say i've ever really considered my mental health. I've had experiences that have made me feel a certain way at the time and partially still make me feel that way when i think back on them but I wouldn't consider those feelings any kind of 'health' issue

@bumptybum well of course most of us have experienced those feelings; they’re a normal ‘healthy’ excpected reaction to a scenario or stressor. That’s life! It would be more abnormal if we didn’t react surely?
That in itself doesn’t mean I have a mental health condition that’s just feeling normal relevant emotions and living/experiencing life.

I'm also in my 60s and agree. When things happen I deal with them then get on with my life. I never give my mental health a second thought and this constant navel gazing by many today doesn't do anyone any good.

I have been though bereavements, break ups, illness. All the stuff that everyone has to negotiate at some point. Its shit, and i felt shit about it . But thats normal, to feel shot anput ahot happening. Its not a mental health crisis. Its a normal response.

Yes, it certainly makes a nice change from many MN threads!

It's her generation. They just got on with stuff. Without all this introspection and fretting about imaginary woes.