Here’s to our mental health
You probably shouldn’t drink to it, but do embrace our perfect imperfections
If 25% of Americans say they’re mentally ill, does that mean that 75% of us are delusional? Asking for an imaginary friend.
A visitor from Mars might be convinced that everyone on Planet Earth has mental health issues. And guess what? They might be right. You can find odes to our struggles all over pop culture, from “Dear Evan Hansen” to “A Million Little Things” to “Ted Lasso” to songs by Olivia Rodrigo, Lil Nas X and Billie Eilish. Consider this popular one from Noah Kahan, about breaking down after breaking up.
The statistics are staggering, and we keep getting fresh horrors like this: A survey found that about one-third of teenage girls in 2021 seriously considered suicide, and about 60% felt so sad or hopeless over a two-week period during the previous year that they stopped regular activities. About 15% said they were forced to have sex.
There’s plenty of fuel, whether you prefer big data or anecdotes, personality quirks or horror stories. Over 5 million adults have autism spectrum disorder. Senator John Fetterman is getting treated for clinical depression, a common reaction among people who have faced serious medical issues, like his stroke.
He’s bruised. We all are. People have PTSD, whether they were soldiers in Afghanistan or third-graders in Uvalde. Any recovering alcoholic with a smidge of self-awareness wouldn’t claim to be as good as new, just as good at they can be. I’ve had at least a couple of bosses with ADHD, diagnosed or not. I would bet at least one former president is a sociopath, and that lots of people who own assault weapons are paranoid. Michelle Obama battled with impostor syndrome, for god’s sake.
Here’s my main reaction to all this.
Good.
Yeah, I’ll explain, but first watch Sarah Silverman talk about how tech and media companies profit from our anger. If you feel overwhelmed by the gloom, maybe your body is telling you to take a break from TV pundits or social media. Give it a week and see if the world looks a little brighter.
In his song “All of Me,” John Legend sings, “Love your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections.” He’s singing to his wife, supermodel Chrissy Teigen. Guess what? She struggles, too. Beauty can’t kill the beast.
One of my perfect imperfections is that I had a stroke 10 years ago — far milder than Fetterman’s. I was hospitalized overnight, healed in a hurry, didn’t need physical therapy. But for years afterward, a demon would visit me in the middle of the night and whisper, “Are you sure you can still move your right foot?” Check. “Right arm?” Check. “OK. Toss and turn for an hour or two. I’ll be back.”
Is anyone who had chemotherapy ever really cancer-free? Sure, their body may be rid of it, but what about their mind? Their demons love the graveyard shift, too.
Even beauty gives us anxiety. Ask any parent of a teenager. Nonbinary and transgender people who are perfectly happy with their sexual identity still have to face bigots who aren’t. Then, of course, there are our golden oldies: racism and sexism.
All this explains why my favorite bit of journalism in the last year came from my former newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. It now has a therapist come in one day a week, offering free appointments to employees who want help, a big step up from the one-size-fits-all hotlines — or lip service — that many companies offer.
If you’re wondering why the Chronicle is doing this, you’re asking the wrong question. Try this one: Why isn’t everybody?
You don’t think police officers could use it? What about restaurant workers, who have been putting up with bullshit from customers not just for three years, but forever? Or teachers? And if any students still have counselors, they need to focus less on whether they’re able to handle algebra or biology, and more on whether they’re able to handle life. Lots of mental health problems start when we’re children or young adults.
So why did I say “Good” nine paragraphs ago? Maybe another inner demon was doing a Fox News impression and trying to piss you off, but mostly it was this: Society is finally starting to realize that people with mental health struggles are not some faceless “them,” but “us.”
Nobody deserves to lose a loved one or get sick or have PTSD and other assorted demons, but here we are. Here we are.
If you don’t realize that something is wrong with you, then something is wrong with you. You might not need therapy or medication — just a dose of self-awareness. It doesn’t mean you should sit there wringing your hands, but maybe reach out to someone who’s wringing theirs.
Maybe the pandemic made us appreciate the collective toll of everything from schizophrenia to those perfect imperfections, so our hearts could open a little more for those who are neurodivergent or face emotional clouds from gun violence or are simply trying to make sense of a dysfunctional health care system.
Even the dating app Hinge is giving users the chance to respond to prompts like “Therapy recently taught me___” and “A boundary of mine is___.”
Good.
Now let’s share a happy story about one of those sad songs we began with. Kahan had a bunch of ideas kicking around in his head — keeping his demons company, I’m sure — including a portion of a breakup song that seemed to be going nowhere.
“I was feeling insecure and I was looking for a way to kind of have a burst of approval that might artificially make me feel better about myself, so I was like, ‘I’m just going to write a verse tonight and put it up on TikTok because I want to feel approval from people — it certainly wasn’t coming from myself.’”
“I captioned it, ‘I don’t want to keep buying weed from high-school kids anymore.’”
He found that approval. And, of course, it scared the crap out of him.
Now he actually had to finish the damn song. Then he thought about other hard parts of his life, from the ugly late autumn in Vermont, when the trees had lost all their beautiful leaves and were naked in the cold, to his family’s history of depression, to his not-always-healthy ways of coping (“I’ll drink alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas”).
Society gets lots of noise from people who are assholes — sometimes to get ratings, often as a cry for attention, always because they’re bruised, too — so we might underestimate how helpful others can be, whether they’re loved ones or TikTok strangers.
A New York Times reader worried that a close friend could have an autism spectrum disorder, which might be stopping her from making and keeping friends. Should they say anything? Yes, gently, the columnist replied.
“Communities have formed; helpful information is pooled and shared, along with moral support. Because there’s a great diversity among the neurodiverse, exactly what works for your friend — should she embrace the description — is something she’ll have to work out.”
That same diversity also means some people will resent it if you say you have a little OCD or are addicted to social media or whatever, but others will welcome it because it means you empathize. Your woes aren’t identical any more than my stroke was like Fetterman’s, but you’re an “us.”
Having that conversation about autism would be hard for the woman to hear and maybe even harder for the friend to bring up, but I hope they find the mutual courage. Because it might make them closer, because we’re all in this together, because sometimes when you make yourself vulnerable, you’ll be surprised at how many people are actually
Good.
Murphy Slaw
Something old: If you’re getting older and want to check your health, these three tests are a good gauge.
Something new: OK, obviously this isn’t really new because Olivia Newton-John died six months ago, but Dolly Parton just released it. Two memorable stars, one great duet.
Something borrowed: My brain might be in a permanent slump, but if yours is just temporary, try this.
Something blue: Even amid life’s greatest horrors, like the tragedy in Turkey, once in a while you can find a miracle.
I can't remember how long it took me to say "My counselor/therapist said I...".
Then I realized it is good to be open about things like that. I'm also a big fan of "Better Living Through Chemistry" - don't want to think about where I would be without my anti-depressant.
Thanks Dave, another good essay!
Another light touch but thought-provoking treatment of a topic near and dear to me. I especially liked, "Is anyone who had chemotherapy ever really cancer-free ... but what about their mind."
Best, Tom