Facts are limited about Tyson Fury’s medical condition and perhaps they should be, except that he is the heavyweight champion the world. He’s Ali, Lewis, Louis, Foreman all rolled into one. Whilst boxing occupies a minority place in the affections of the public, the man who is champion often transcends his sport, becomes bigger than the sport, his every move and comment dutifully recorded in the media. But what happens when, as it is suggested, the world heavyweight champion suffers from depression? What do we do then?
Fury’s behaviour has been, shall we say, erratic to say the least. The loosest of loose cannons, saying often the most outrageous things, upsetting some people, disgusting others, entertaining the rest. He was box office before he won the world title, he’s dynamite now. Except that his erratic behaviour has deteriorated still more. We are told, let to believe, he suffers from depression. The indication that he is mentally ill should make everyone sit up and think, although nothing can excuse some of his more lurid behaviour. But the boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, the wide-eyed cockney son of Barry, has another view:
“Peter Fury and [promoter] Mick Hennessy needed to get hold of him, give him a slap and say: “Pull yourself together, you’re the heavyweight champion of the world, you’re going to make millions in the biggest fights in world boxing. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”
Where Hearn got this idea that depression requires little more than a slap and for someone to simply pull themselves together displays a profound ignorance of a very unpleasant and debilitating illness. Imagine if Hearn was talking about someone with cancer? He wouldn’t say that someone deserved a slap for having cancer or that by pulling himself together the cancer might miraculously disappear, but he thinks it’s okay to treat depression with such disdain.
I do not know if Fury himself has revealed his mental illness or whether it was done on his behalf, with or without his knowledge and approval. It scarcely matters. Either way, he deserves our sympathy and support and, if he decided to make it public himself, our praise, because this is still not the way things are in our so-called enlightened society. Far from it.
It was only in the very late stages with my civil service life that I decided to come clean about my own depression. I had nothing to lose because I was nearing the end of my career, such as it was, but for the 35 preceding years, I had felt the need to keep it hidden because it represented weakness and, anyway, as with Eddie Hearn, the powers that be regarded mental illness as something that could be resolved if only you’d pull yourself together.
I am not sure that being punched in the head is beneficial to a mental health condition though I very much doubt it, but given that boxing remains legal, I’d like to think that Tyson Fury will recover from his demons and resume his chosen profession. Thanks to David Cameron’s Tory government in which some Liberals had jobs, words spoke louder than actions and spending on mental health was drastically cut. It was almost playing on that large section of the public who don’t believe mental health is anything worse than feeling a bit down.
Sometimes, when I discuss the issue of mental health, I often feel I am talking backwards in failing to explain that poor mental health destroys lives. Pulling yourself together and snapping out of it is ignorance of the highest order and, dare I say, just what you’d expect to hear from a boxing promoter who makes a living from men trying to render each other unconscious.
