Joanna Lumley said people were too quick to jump on mental health bandwagon and was leapt on by pack of Twitter wolves
ONCE upon a time Brits were lauded for having a stiff upper lip.
Bottling up emotions got us through two world wars, a winter of discontent and the ending of Marley & Me.
Today it’s up there with blackface and wolf-whistling on the PC scale.
Nowadays we’re encouraged to “let it all go”, and seek professional help when things get a bit much.
Celeb after C-list celeb cites “mental health battles” as an explanation for any bad behaviour — i.e. they got caught.
So when Joanna Lumley suggested people are too quick to jump on the “mental illness bandwagon”, obviously she was leapt upon by a pack of frothing Twitter wolves.
Many questioned her qualifications in psychiatry (probably none but 75 years on this planet must earn her some pretty decent life points), while others branded her little short of a dangerous lunatic.
One Twitter user foamed: “The ‘pull your socks up’ brigade has a lot to answer for. Old people seem to think that having emotions is a weakness.”
The reality is that the Ab Fab star has every right to speak out.
Not only is brilliant, life-saving mental health charity Mind one of 38 charitable organisations she supports, the actress and presenter has previously been open about the full psychiatric breakdown she had in her twenties.
So, yes, I’d say she was pretty entitled to have an opinion.
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Joanna mused: “This is a horrible thing to say but I think the mental health thing is being overplayed at the moment because anybody who is even remotely sad says they have got mental problems.
“You go, ‘This is what is called being human.’ When someone dies and you grieve, that’s human.
“That’s what being a human is. You’re not mentally ill.
“And I think it also is awful to people who really are mentally ill or are properly clinically depressed, for everybody to say they’ve got to have some sort of special treatment.
“Just get a grip. Do you know what I mean? Of course some of you are going to feel bloody awful and some of you may well be suicidal or mentally depressed, that’s a different thing.
“But anybody who just goes, ‘Oh, burr’ — you just think, ‘Get over it’.”
She speaks a lot of sense.
To be clear, mental illness is a very, very real thing — one that debilitates lives. It affects not just the sufferer but their loved ones, those left to pick up the pieces.
‘We’ve become navel-gazing, therapy-obsessed nation’
Depression, anxiety, bipolar — these are each every bit as much of an illness as cancer.
That we’ve opened up the conversation around mental health is, by and large, great.
It allows those who have mental illness to get the help they need, with no stigma attached.
But I fear, to some extent, we’ve also bred a generation of navel-gazing, therapy-obsessed overthinkers. (I include myself in this bracket.)
Teachers are too scared to tell kids off in case they get misquoted and sacked.
Millennials are becoming increasingly entitled, forever reminding employers their “work-life balance” comes first.
The pandemic hasn’t helped.
In spawning a nation of comfy work-from-homers, we’ve given people more time to self-diagnose courtesy of Doctor Google.
When I got dumped for the first time ever a few years ago, I cried for about the fifth time in my life. I tried therapy. It made me cry more.
But I fear, to some extent, we’ve also bred a generation of navel-gazing, therapy-obsessed overthinkers. (I include myself in this bracket.)
Clemmie Moodie
Wailing to Celine Dion’s All By Myself, on loop, was helping nobody. Least of all me. I snapped out of it.
This was glorious, messy, not-perfect life. Not chronic depression.
But more and more, we are looking for labels to cover the most basic of human emotions.
If someone upsets us, it’s “depression”. If we’re nervous about something, it’s “anxiety”.
Our collective resilience is waning.
By incorrectly citing mental illness, it is hugely unfair to those who really are ill.
Of course, anyone should be listened to, and therapy is a useful, indispensable tool to millions.
But by crying wolf, we undermine the bone-numbing, crippling pain of those who really do have mental illness.
Some people can’t “get over it”, they can’t “snap out” of things. They are the ones we must help.
A bitter pill, Loz
WELL, this didn’t age too well.
Last week rent-a-rant actor Laurence Fox, a man who doesn’t seem to believe in Covid, proudly showed off a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “No vaccine needed; I have an immune system”.
Five days later, he tweeted a lateral flow test showing he has Covid.
Laurence, the man who doesn’t need medicine because he has an immune system, added that he was taking “ivermectin, saline nasal rinse, quercetin, paracetamol and ibuprofen”.
Those holistic little supplements, made by small pharma . . .
Minnie's strides for womankind
IT’S 1988. I am six years old, and chief (only) bridesmaid at my aunt and uncle’s picturesque countryside nuptials.
Stomping down the aisle with red-rimmed eyes, in a pink, marshmallow dress.
Wedding photos ruined as I stared stony-eyed, silently seething, into the camera lens.
For MONTHS I’d begged my parents to let me wear my Spider-Man costume, or a smart little suit. Both were a hard No.
It’s now 2022. I can wear what I want, when I want.
Not purely on account of being, well, 40 (just) – but thanks to little things like this: Minnie Mouse being given a trouser-wearing makeover.
Thanks to Stella McCartney, Disney’s most famous female rodent is no longer wearing a polka dot frock.
It is, according to the Brit designer, a “symbol of progress for a new generation”.
Yes, it’s woke. But, for once, I don’t care.
For tomboys like me out there, little Minnie represents a beacon of hope that girls don’t have to wear dresses.
Footie is on trial
AGED 20, Mason Greenwood is a multi-millionaire.
A man who, until Sunday, was hero-worshipped by millions and had women throwing themselves at his Nike-sponsored feet.
In a heartbeat – in the length of time it took to post harrowing audio and pictures of alleged rape and physical abuse – he could lose all that.
If found guilty, Mason must never play professional football again.
No club can touch him, and he will never again wear the Three Lions crest on his chestbone.
Whatever the truth of this incident – and Mason is innocent until proven guilty – football more widely has to take a hard look at itself.
While we do not know what happened with the Greenwood matter, over recent years too many footballers have cheated off the pitch almost as much as they have dazzled on it.
Top-flight players are treated like gods.
Their every Neanderthal grunt celebrated, sulky post-match interview pardoned and jack-the-lad antics cheered on.
For too long they’ve been allowed to get away with it.
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If guilty, Greenwood must be made an example of.
Academy players, schoolkids, the stars of tomorrow – they need proper role models.
Owen your own
ONE minute you are an 18-year-old wonderkid scoring a World Cup screamer against Argentina.
The next you’re dressed as a doughnut singing along to Five’s Everybody Get Up.
Poor Michael Owen.