It is somewhere between one and two in the morning and, as per usual, I am flicking through internet tabs. Without really taking anything in, I am dividing my attention between a recipe for broccoli and peanut butter soup (one which has been in my favorites tab for maybe three years, still never attempted), some news story about a terrible event in which many people have needlessly died, and the usual social media sites. Scrolling down my Facebook feed, in between the enviable holiday snaps and the links to more sad news stories—people don’t talk very much on Facebook any more, I’ve noticed; it’s mostly a conduit for the exchanging of links—a picture catches my eye. It’s a cartoon of a friendly-looking blob man, large-eyed and edgeless, wrapped up in blankets. The blob man is saying “It’s okay if all you want to do today is just stay in bed and watch Netflix.” I draw up my covers, nodding to no one in particular, and flick to a tab with my favorite old TV show.
The above story doesn’t refer to any particular night that I can remember. But the general theme is one that I’ve played out again and again. I’m not sure I’m ever going to make that soup.
If you’re a millennial with regular access to the internet, you’ve probably seen similar images to the cartoon I’ve described above. They’re usually painted in comforting primary colors or pastels, featuring simple illustrations, accompanied by text in a non-threatening font. They invite you to practice ‘self-care’, a term that has been prominent in healthcare theory for many decades but has recently increased in visibility online. The term generally refers to a variety of techniques and habits that are supposed to help with one’s physical and mental well-being, reduce stress, and lead to a more balanced lifestyle. “It’s like if you were walking outside in a thunderstorm, umbrella-less, and you walked into a café filled with plush armchairs, wicker baskets full of flowers, and needlepoints on the walls that say things like ‘Be kind to yourself’ and ‘You are enough,’” says The Atlantic. Though the term has a medical tinge to it, the language used in the world of self-care is more aligned with the world of self-help, and much of the advice commonly given in the guise of self-care will be familiar to anyone who has browsed the pop-psychology shelves of a bookstore or listened to the counsel of a kindly coworker—take breaks from work and step outside for fresh air, take walks in the countryside, call a friend for a chat, have a lavender bath, get a good night’s sleep. Light a candle. Stop being so hard on yourself. Take time off if you’re not feeling so well and snuggle under the comforter with a DVD set and a herbal tea. Few people would argue with these tips in isolation (with a few exceptions—I think herbal tea is foul). We should all be making sure we are well-fed, rested, and filling our lives with things that we enjoy. In a time where people—especially millennials, at whom this particular brand of self-care is aimed—are increasingly talking about their struggles with depression, anxiety and insecurities, it’s no wonder that “practicing self-care” is an appealing prospect, even if it does sometimes seem like a fancy way to say “do things you like.” What is concerning is the way that this advice appears to be perfectly designed to fit in with a society that appears to be the cause of so much of the depression, anxiety, and insecurities. By finding the solution to young people’s mental ill-health (be it a diagnosed mental health problem or simply the day-to-day stresses of life) in do-it-yourself fixes, and putting the burden on the target audience to find a way to cope, the framework of self-care avoids having to think about issues on a societal level. In the world of self-care, mental health is not political, it’s individual. Self-care is mental health care for the neoliberal era.
As I write, the U.K. Prime Minister, Theresa May, is tweeting about World Mental Health Day and suicide prevention. She is not the only one; scrolling through the trending hashtags (there are several) one can find lots of comforting words about taking care of yourself, about opening up, confiding in a friend, keeping active, taking a breath. One such tweet is a picture of an arts-and-craftsy cut-out of a bright yellow circle behind dull green paper, designed to look like a cheerful sun. Printed on the sun are the words “everything will be so good so soon just hang in there & don’t worry about it too much.” All of us have probably seen some variation of these words at many points in our lives, and probably found at least a little bit of momentary relief in them. But looking through other tweets about World Mental Health Day reveals a different side of the issue. People talk about the times they did try to seek help, and were left to languish on waiting lists for therapy. They talk about the cuts to their local services (if they’re from somewhere with universal healthcare) or the insurance policies that wouldn’t cover them (if they’re in the United States). They talk about the illnesses left cold and untouched by campaigns that claim to reduce stigma—personality disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. They talk about homelessness and insecure housing and jobs that leave them exhausted. They talk about loneliness. And, in the case of Theresa May, they talk about how the suicide prevention minister she promises to hire will have to deal with the many people who consider suicide in response to her government’s policies. These are deep material and societal issues that all of us are touched by, to at least some degree. We know it when we see people begging in the streets, when we read yet another report that tells us our planet is dying, when we try to figure out why we feel sad and afraid and put it down to an ‘off day’, trying not to think about just how many ‘off days’ we seem to have. We turn to our TVs, to our meditation apps, and hope we can paper over the cracks. We are in darkness, and when we cry out for light, we are handed a scented candle.
A common sentiment expressed in the world of self-care is that anyone can suffer from mental ill-health. This is true, but it’s not the entire story. In fact, mental health problems are strongly correlated with poverty, vulnerability, and physical health conditions (with the causation going both ways). Furthermore, there is a big difference between those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to take time off work for doctor’s appointments and mental health days, and those who can’t; those of us who have children or other dependents to take care of, and those who don’t; those of us who have the financial independence to take a break from our obligations when we need to, and those who don’t. Not all people have the same access to help, or even access to their own free time—employers increasingly expect workers to be available whenever they are needed, both in white-collar jobs and precarious shift work. Add in the (heavily gendered) responsibilities of being a parent, studying, a night-time Uber gig to cover the bills, or a long commute from the only affordable area in the city, and the stress of life will pile on even as it soaks up the time you’re supposed to set aside to relieve that stress. Funding cuts are in fashion across a plethora of Western countries, both to healthcare and to other services that indirectly affect our health, especially the health of people who need additional support to lead the lives they wish to live, or even just to survive. The rhetoric around self-care is flattering but flattening, treating its audience as though the solution to their problems is believing in themselves and investing in themselves. This picture glosses over the question of what happens when society does not believe or invest in us.
Even for those of us who are relatively lucky in life, self-care does not solve our problems. “It’s okay if all you did today was breathe,” promises a widely-shared image macro of a gentle talking pair of lungs. Well, I hate to break it to you, talking lungs, but it’s 2018. We’re supposed to be walking powerhouses of productivity, using every minute of our time to its best effect. In an economic environment where careers are precarious and competitive, young people are increasingly pressured to give up their free time to take on extracurriculars and unpaid projects “for their resume,” produce creative content “for exposure,” learn skills such as coding, scout for jobs on LinkedIn, write self-promoting posts about their personal qualities, and perhaps worst of all, attend godawful networking events, some of which don’t even have free canapés.
The above story doesn’t refer to any particular night that I can remember. But the general theme is one that I’ve played out again and again. I’m not sure I’m ever going to make that soup.
If you’re a millennial with regular access to the internet, you’ve probably seen similar images to the cartoon I’ve described above. They’re usually painted in comforting primary colors or pastels, featuring simple illustrations, accompanied by text in a non-threatening font. They invite you to practice ‘self-care’, a term that has been prominent in healthcare theory for many decades but has recently increased in visibility online. The term generally refers to a variety of techniques and habits that are supposed to help with one’s physical and mental well-being, reduce stress, and lead to a more balanced lifestyle. “It’s like if you were walking outside in a thunderstorm, umbrella-less, and you walked into a café filled with plush armchairs, wicker baskets full of flowers, and needlepoints on the walls that say things like ‘Be kind to yourself’ and ‘You are enough,’” says The Atlantic. Though the term has a medical tinge to it, the language used in the world of self-care is more aligned with the world of self-help, and much of the advice commonly given in the guise of self-care will be familiar to anyone who has browsed the pop-psychology shelves of a bookstore or listened to the counsel of a kindly coworker—take breaks from work and step outside for fresh air, take walks in the countryside, call a friend for a chat, have a lavender bath, get a good night’s sleep. Light a candle. Stop being so hard on yourself. Take time off if you’re not feeling so well and snuggle under the comforter with a DVD set and a herbal tea. Few people would argue with these tips in isolation (with a few exceptions—I think herbal tea is foul). We should all be making sure we are well-fed, rested, and filling our lives with things that we enjoy. In a time where people—especially millennials, at whom this particular brand of self-care is aimed—are increasingly talking about their struggles with depression, anxiety and insecurities, it’s no wonder that “practicing self-care” is an appealing prospect, even if it does sometimes seem like a fancy way to say “do things you like.” What is concerning is the way that this advice appears to be perfectly designed to fit in with a society that appears to be the cause of so much of the depression, anxiety, and insecurities. By finding the solution to young people’s mental ill-health (be it a diagnosed mental health problem or simply the day-to-day stresses of life) in do-it-yourself fixes, and putting the burden on the target audience to find a way to cope, the framework of self-care avoids having to think about issues on a societal level. In the world of self-care, mental health is not political, it’s individual. Self-care is mental health care for the neoliberal era.As I write, the U.K. Prime Minister, Theresa May, is tweeting about World Mental Health Day and suicide prevention. She is not the only one; scrolling through the trending hashtags (there are several) one can find lots of comforting words about taking care of yourself, about opening up, confiding in a friend, keeping active, taking a breath. One such tweet is a picture of an arts-and-craftsy cut-out of a bright yellow circle behind dull green paper, designed to look like a cheerful sun. Printed on the sun are the words “everything will be so good so soon just hang in there & don’t worry about it too much.” All of us have probably seen some variation of these words at many points in our lives, and probably found at least a little bit of momentary relief in them. But looking through other tweets about World Mental Health Day reveals a different side of the issue. People talk about the times they did try to seek help, and were left to languish on waiting lists for therapy. They talk about the cuts to their local services (if they’re from somewhere with universal healthcare) or the insurance policies that wouldn’t cover them (if they’re in the United States). They talk about the illnesses left cold and untouched by campaigns that claim to reduce stigma—personality disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. They talk about homelessness and insecure housing and jobs that leave them exhausted. They talk about loneliness. And, in the case of Theresa May, they talk about how the suicide prevention minister she promises to hire will have to deal with the many people who consider suicide in response to her government’s policies. These are deep material and societal issues that all of us are touched by, to at least some degree. We know it when we see people begging in the streets, when we read yet another report that tells us our planet is dying, when we try to figure out why we feel sad and afraid and put it down to an ‘off day’, trying not to think about just how many ‘off days’ we seem to have. We turn to our TVs, to our meditation apps, and hope we can paper over the cracks. We are in darkness, and when we cry out for light, we are handed a scented candle.
A common sentiment expressed in the world of self-care is that anyone can suffer from mental ill-health. This is true, but it’s not the entire story. In fact, mental health problems are strongly correlated with poverty, vulnerability, and physical health conditions (with the causation going both ways). Furthermore, there is a big difference between those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to take time off work for doctor’s appointments and mental health days, and those who can’t; those of us who have children or other dependents to take care of, and those who don’t; those of us who have the financial independence to take a break from our obligations when we need to, and those who don’t. Not all people have the same access to help, or even access to their own free time—employers increasingly expect workers to be available whenever they are needed, both in white-collar jobs and precarious shift work. Add in the (heavily gendered) responsibilities of being a parent, studying, a night-time Uber gig to cover the bills, or a long commute from the only affordable area in the city, and the stress of life will pile on even as it soaks up the time you’re supposed to set aside to relieve that stress. Funding cuts are in fashion across a plethora of Western countries, both to healthcare and to other services that indirectly affect our health, especially the health of people who need additional support to lead the lives they wish to live, or even just to survive. The rhetoric around self-care is flattering but flattening, treating its audience as though the solution to their problems is believing in themselves and investing in themselves. This picture glosses over the question of what happens when society does not believe or invest in us.
Even for those of us who are relatively lucky in life, self-care does not solve our problems. “It’s okay if all you did today was breathe,” promises a widely-shared image macro of a gentle talking pair of lungs. Well, I hate to break it to you, talking lungs, but it’s 2018. We’re supposed to be walking powerhouses of productivity, using every minute of our time to its best effect. In an economic environment where careers are precarious and competitive, young people are increasingly pressured to give up their free time to take on extracurriculars and unpaid projects “for their resume,” produce creative content “for exposure,” learn skills such as coding, scout for jobs on LinkedIn, write self-promoting posts about their personal qualities, and perhaps worst of all, attend godawful networking events, some of which don’t even have free canapés.
by Aisling McCrae, Current Affairs | Read more:
Image: Lizzy Price
