I am not, it is fair to say, a great fan of the ITV daytime show Loose Women, in which semi-famous women talk about stuff. I am probably not part of its target audience either. I pay little attention to what happens on the show until I read something rather offensive has been said. And someone has said something rather offensive.
One of the presenters is called Saira Khan. I have not heard of her but according to Wikipedia – so it must be true – she is a TV presenter and celebrity. Anyway, Ms Khan displayed some interesting views on children with depression in a recent show. Apparently, the panel, as they call themselves, were discussing whether young people and children should be allowed to have “mental health days” off from school. Ms Khan said no: “I don’t want to underplay mental health, but personally, for me, I don’t think this is a good idea. Look, life is life and we have to know how to cope with mental health in everyday life. You can’t just take time out from school.” Some level of understanding here, then.
You know my default setting about ignorance surrounding mental health: it pisses me right off. Ms Khan says she doesn’t want to “underplay mental health” and then promptly does. It’s not a good idea for a child with mental health issues to take time off school but, she adds astutely, “life is life”. “We have to cope with mental health in everyday life. You can’t just take time out from school.” Thanks to my brand new turntable, I can once again play my broken record: some of us can’t cope with “mental health in everyday life” and never could. Age really doesn’t come into it. I was in therapy before I was even a teenager. I had no choice taking time off school. Dammit – I was ill, not that I had any better idea of mental illness then as Ms Khan has today. I was too ill.
I’ll explain a bit more. Mental health problems ruined my life. My scholastic career was ravaged and cut short by illness, my career choices, such as they were, severely limited. My victory, my success, was getting near the end line without breaking down altogether. I don’t see them as particularly great victories at all. When I was suffering from panic attacks and night terrors, soon followed by severe anxiety and then depression, it didn’t occur to me that this might not be a “good idea”. It wasn’t my idea at all.
I have known young people who killed themselves before they became adults and I have known adults who killed themselves after a lifetime of mental illness. I do not need some Pound Shop TV presenter and “celebrity” lecturing us on what she falsely believes mental illness to be. Cancer, heart disease and dementia are not good ideas either, but no one suggests telling sufferers just to “cope”.
Unsurprisingly, viewers of the show held mixed opinions. Some felt Ms Khan was bang out of order, others thought she had a point. One woman said the idea of children taking time off school due to mental illness was ridiculous since they already had 14 weeks holiday a year. It would be quite wrong to suggest that the latter view might be consistent with the views of many people who watched Loose Women.
As the show came to an end, the panel debated (!) the effects social media had on mental health, when Ms Khan revealed that she was heavily reliant for information by what she read on social networks. She is of course entitled to her opinion in what remains, just about, a free country. I am, by the same token, entitled to give mine and mine is that she is an ignorant idiot who would do well to bone up and learn about a subject that destroys and even ends lives. It certainly isn’t a choice.
