Anxiety
Down your beers, out-drink and out-fight your mates. Get smashed on the weekends and impress every second chick you meet at a club. Be emotionless, aggressive and show no weakness.
This tough Aussie bloke image has led a dominant social construction of manliness in Australia and sends a message that men don’t and shouldn’t struggle with stress, get depression, anxiety or any mental health issues. But if you do, the antidote to that is a bucket full of cement and some “hardening the f—k up” and she’ll be ‘right.
We’re a nation so obsessed with demanding our blokes be “bullet proof” that it is literally killing us. For many, suicide is an easier option than admitting that you’re having a tough time and need a bit of help.
Mental health surveys consistently show that around one in five of us will experience an episode of significant distress and dysfunction in any year. It saddens me that this suffering is mostly labelled as mental disorder and that we are encouraged to seek medical treatment for it.
No one likes suffering, but to suffer meaninglessly is worse. We should therefore strive to help people make sense of their distress; instead contemporary psychiatric practice is to rob actions and experiences of their meaning by applying simplistic labels and glib biological explanations.
Of course biological understanding can impart meaning, sometimes dramatically.
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narelle says:
well its good to see that NO-ONE here actually had a mental illness or know ANYTHING about it…but are willing to spout bs anyway…being sad and being depressed…are 2 TOTALLY different fking things!!! also when medicated women find it easier to adress major issues…such as abuse…i know this because i… Read more »
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Anne Stocks says:
One good thing is that not many people have a medical certific saying their normal, I need to frame mine and hang it somewhere to remind me when I feel anything but normal, that I am, because they said so. Even though they thought I had Bipolar and at times… Read more »
Our mental health priorities are seriously out of whack.
Australia’s mental health system is a shambles. It’s under-funded and plagued by bureaucracy and a lack of political will.
People in desperate need of help are slipping through the cracks, as bed numbers dive and community support fails to reel in the slack.
Continue reading "We need to keep the bigger issues in mind" »
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Andre says:
I’m not sure that the 8 or 9 hours of sleep is aabainttle when I’m on clinical rotations instead of research, though I keep striving for it:) And doing little things to get outside while it’s still warm is a great idea.The eating and exercise pieces are so hard… I… Read more »
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Luke says:
“It’s difficult to have a serious debate on the over-prescription of drugs. Part of this is because Scientology has ripped much credibility out of the argument with their rigid opposition to any sort of medication” Scientology has acted as champions to those who risk thier careers speaking against mind altering… Read more »
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