I am Angry!!
Angry at the lies we tell, the lies we have told in the past, and the way they still apply today. Which lies? Well admittedly there may be a whole range of them and I am not attempting to take on them all, but the lies that have got me angry are those that get in the way of our mental wellbeing.
As a child I was told, or absorbed somehow, I can’t remember not knowing it, the great lie of childhood bullying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me’. It may have been intended as a putdown to bullies, a ‘you can’t get me’ claim, but for me it became a reason why my suffering, the fact I cannot remember school before the name calling that continued until I left at 18, was not worth making a fuss about. Why I should be grateful that it was names not physical wounding – yet the words seep in the cracks of who you are, they leak into the roots of your emerging identity, and can wound deep and for longer.
As a girl and now a woman I was saved from the other insidious, deathly lie – ‘Big boys don’t cry’. Women are the majority among those receiving treatment for depression and other mental health issues, but men are the most likely to take their own lives. Why? Because ‘big boys don’t cry’ – women can admit to their emotions but generations of men have been brought up to face it all with a stiff upper lip, and the shame of seeking help is greater so they bottle it up until the risk of it exploding in one lethal moment is huge.
Why is my anger riled today particularly? Well I am returning to counselling for support about the long shadows in my life. But mostly because today we farewelled and buried someone who lived in anguish for decades after the death of the two men in her life, her brother and her father, due to suicidal depression. In an era when the pain wasn’t acknowledged, when men weren’t encouraged to seek support, when ‘big boys don’t cry’ wounds were left unbound, open sores to get infected with terminal depression. Could things have been different? Could the life story, the family story we remembered today have been different?
How many lives have been lost to the lies, to the stigma? And how many lives left behind have been torn apart because of the lies our society tells about emotional wounds, about so called weakness.
That is why campaigns such as Time to change are so important, that is why next Friday I will be taking the opportunity to speak to 100 14/15yr olds about the lies, and why talking about mental health is important. We wouldn’t ignore a heart attack, so why should we fear asking for help with a broken heart or spirit?
I remembered you saying on Claire's FB wall that today's service could have been really tough for you, Helen, with echoes and shadows of your own experiences. But I'm glad I remembered to write that down in my prayer diary - so you got prayed for twice today. Thanks for sharing this post, and I trust that things were better than you feared.
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