Understanding the blues –
Mental Health & the difficult conversation.
Why is it so difficult to explain mental illness to somebody who hasn’t experienced it and why is there still such a stigma around mental health?
I talk a lot about mental health & the difficult conversation surrounding it (see my post on mental health first aid), but maybe it is so difficult because we simply can’t find the words – maybe the right words aren’t even around yet!
Did you know that a word for the colour blue didn’t exist for a very long time? (Have a listen to this great Radiolab Podcast to find out more.) The first culture to even have the word blue were the Egyptians, which isn’t surprising as we are still struggling to understand their grasp of many concepts, even using modern technology!
Every culture started with only words for black and white, or dark and light, which makes complete sense when you think about it! But it’s still hard to imagine a time without any reference to colour!
We then started to find words for red – blood and wine are frequently referenced and it’s likely that poisonous red berries were a useful thing to convey to others.
Yellow was next to be found, then green, and finally – blue.
Can you imagine trying to describe the sky or the sea without knowing a particular colour actually exists? Furthermore, if we don’t have a word for it, do we really see it?
In “The Odyssey” Homer describes the sea as “wine-dark”, which does make sense in some ways, but you can’t help wondering what he’d have written had he a repertoire of different colours to choose from.
In reality, there is not much in nature that is blue, so it makes sense that reds and greens came first, but it also leaves you wondering how much we still don’t have words for.
If we missed out on simple colours that we now take for granted, how much could we still be missing because we haven’t been taught how to describe it? Just because we don’t have a word for it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
At this point, however, I have to be careful, as I want to be clear that I’m not talking about labels, as I really don’t believe that labels are helpful. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) is used by most as the authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders (Another term I disagree with! As I believe that most mental health problems are caused by the brain’s very ordered and proper function, it’s just in a very different world to that it was designed to protect us from!).
The DSM is rapidly growing in size as more “disorders” are being proclaimed. The first edition consisted of 130 pages in 1952, which was up to 991 in 2014! (The DSM: mindful science or mindless power? A critical review. 2014) That’s given a massive boost to the economy of psychotropic medication, mostly anti-depressants. Putting a very lucrative plaster over a very embedded rusty nail.
As mental health is so subjective, this manual can surely lead to many diagnoses based on arbitrary markers, with no scientific, cultural or contextual consideration.
A rather horrible example is that homosexuality was defined as a mental disorder until 1973 (Greener, 2013).
So I’m not saying that we need accurate labels. I work to the Bandler & Grinder model which emphasises that people are fundamentally not broken and that we have all the resources within ourselves to live a joyful and healthy life, but I do think that the world of science and technology has moved so quickly that our subconscious minds simply don’t have the tools to work with.
So maybe the answer is to stop looking at mental illness as black and white, or light and dark. Maybe we need to appreciate the whole rainbow as a key to its understanding and finding the right words is the key to breaking the stigma. No labels, just understanding and the ability to understand and be understood. So let’s keep talking and maybe we’ll start to find the words that will help mental health & the difficult conversation all start to make sense.
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