Better Mental Health Starts With Radical Honesty
But how do we as a society communicate and react to this kind of candour?
Seeming as we are smack bang in the middle of Mental Health Week in Queensland, it seems like a good time to share my hot takes on the blues. Mental health is of course not just the blues. It’s a broad term encompassing everything from feeling low to full blown illnesses. What has made it a challenging battle is that it’s very hard to tell from the outside if someone is the victim of his or her own mind. Your inner voice could be a bully but unlike a real bully who leaves bruises on your back, the scars in this case cannot be detected by anyone, not even you at first.
It’s a very unique problem, and there is no one pill or piece of advice that can work for everyone. To know yourself is the only way you can improve your mental health. By this I mean your triggers, your weaknesses, knowing where you lose objectivity and cling on to a flawed but comfortable narrative.
People are quick to say that social media and our lifestyle at large is to blame for the rise in mental health issues.
I don’t think it’s that simple. There are aspects about Facebook and Instagram’s usage that hack into our attention span and sense of well being but at the end of the day, these are just apps. YOU are still the user and have the choice to unplug or say no completely. The latter is a bit extreme considering all the benefits provided by the internet. I am ever so grateful to the online world for allowing me to meet like minded people and engage with positive communities, especially during this season of endless lockdown.
One of the first aspects of culture shock upon arriving in the west was the ubiquitous “how are you?”. It was impolite to not greet or acknowledge another person. Back in India or Dubai, there was never small talk of any kind with supermarket cashiers or people you run into in the corridor. Here I was being offered a stage to go extempore and wittily narrate the goings on in my life? What a wonderful world, where people care enough to stop, smile and ask you how you’re doing!
Soon, I learnt that all that was expected was an “I’m good. How’re you?” to which the response 9 out of 10 times would be “Fine, thanks”. This exchange would happen in a single breath, guaranteed to never go off script. It stopped being such a fascinating thing when I started experiencing the pains of isolation and invisibility as an international student. At a time like that, all you want is for another human to notice you and ask how you are doing with a little bit of genuine curiosity, not even concern. I heard the words day in day out but was no longer naive to think that anyone actually cared.
They were just being nice.
The second commonly cited reason for deteriorating mental health is a breakdown in communication.
This is often considered a consequence of social media usage. If we’re having all our DnMs over DMs, then it’s easy for the distrust to be targeted at the medium. Social media as a whole earns the tag of superficial, when the truth is superficiality is in the fabric how we communicate today. In the early days of Facebook, it meant people preferring a message on someone’s Wall to actually making a phone call. Today however, I find that the problem lies in a kind of dishonest communication.
A lot of the words exchanged on social media are about policing thought and “being mindful”. Well intentioned as it may be, it makes people self conscious of their thoughts at best, afraid of their thoughts at worst. This means people say “safe” things that hopefully won’t rock the boat. These are words and sentences carefully constructed to show care but ring hollow. Phrases like “reach out if you need someone to speak to” or “I’m here for you” are meant to indicate that there’s support but is it enough?
Are we really putting the onus on someone struggling to come to terms with their mental turmoil to reach out and make the first move?
The alternative would be sincere inquiry. To ask a few specific questions about how someone’s doing. However, many are wary of asking any follow up questions to how’re you doing for fear of being called intrusive. What we then end up with is very surface level, superficial concern that doesn’t want to cause a mess due to extreme self consciousness on the asker’s part, that they’d justify as self awareness. If you can’t frame a specific question, volunteer some information about your own life and what’s been going on.
You cannot connect without vulnerability.
When someone’s in the pits, they are more likely to respond to a shred of empathy, to universal, human pain or experience. Not a direct request/order to open up if they feel like it. That might give you the satisfaction that you did your part, but that’s surely not enough for them. I would go so far as to say it’s a bit cowardly.
If you, like me, have started taking mere “how are you’s” personally, as a lack of effort and can’t shake off this feeling that people don’t really mean what they say, are fake and just generally suspect every human interaction as being insincere… it means the lockdown is getting to you or your hormones are having a field day. But possibly also that you prefer raw connection even if it’s a little disruptive over gentle, polite concern that comes with an air of formality. Boundaries, a word oft used in any mental health conversation, are meant to understand one’s own limitations and not to create more distance between people. It surely isn’t a wall that is supposed to come down hard for fear of offending the other person.
That said, I admit that people do get easily offended these days.
You aren’t allowed to say “it happens to everyone” even if your intent is to say that they aren’t alone. There is no place for tough love and plain ol’ gritty truth when we as a society have made it okay to relentlessly call out tone, even if it means the message is lost in the noise. Not everyone is ready for honesty. And even if they are, it is only from a “qualified mental health professional” who will give them “gentle feedback” like she’s being paid for it. The candour in a friend’s wisdom is more likely to be dismissed. Perhaps the trappings of a society where egos are more fragile than ever before.
If the everlasting solution to having a good relationship with your thoughts, feelings and emotions is to know and understand yourself, the first step in that life long process would be honesty. Express in all honesty exactly how you feel. It is okay to not do that on a public platform or even one on one with a friend who’s approaching the whole situation with safety gloves. You do however owe that full disclosure to yourself if you want to see better days.
