Going Mental: Meghan Markle and Mental Health

Issue Nine

Mar 14, 2021

Going Mental has gone weekly!

Let me just say, I really like this format. It allows me to be more intentional with my content, and given that I always wanted to include a lot of linked articles, I’m able to compile them over the course of the week. I really do hope you’ll read at least some of them.

But we’ve got a newsletter to get to, so let’s go mental.

In the Media

I’m sure you’ve seen it, whether in its entirety or in abbreviated clips. I’m speaking, of course, about Oprah’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry last Sunday. And, if I may be so bold, I’m certain at least a few of you rolled your eyes at Ms. Markle’s remarks.

“She sunk into depression? As if. She’s a royal princess and a multimillionaire.” “She contemplated suicide? Puh-lease!”

I hope that wasn’t you. And if it was: stop it. Stop right now.

No, Ms. Markle didn’t see read your tweets or see your Instagram posts or overhear your conversations. But someone else did. And I guarantee at least one person who did read, or see, or overhear is currently not okay, perhaps in their own depression, maybe thinking of killing themselves. Your reaction will have pushed them closer to the edge.

Now, if you didn’t see the interview, I’ve posted some highlights in the Video section of this newsletter. And, to accompany it, I’ve chosen this Cosmopolitan article as an analytical companion. And NO, I don’t “read” Cosmo; though, if I did, so what? I searched for a column that mirrored my own thoughts and Jennifer Savin’s excellent piece happened to be it. Please—read it.

Savin, incidentally, happens to be one of those already-depressed people who saw a lot of negative remarks in the wake of the interview. She was troubled by it. She rightly points out that “ill mental health doesn’t discriminate…She’s human, not Teflon.”

She goes on: “Those people who are now scrutinising every sliver of footage and each photo of Meghan and Harry, looking for signs that she’s ‘lying’ or ‘genuinely happy (during the times she’s now explicitly stated she felt the opposite), appear not to realise that they’re feeding into a terrifying narrative of ‘talking about mental health struggles is pointless, because nobody will believe you and you’ll look like an attention-seeker.”

In other words—and, as I’ve written in newspapers previously—they’ll have blood on their hands. Full stop.

Savin also describes the so-far most high-profile instance of experience-denial—that of Good Morning Britain co-host Piers Morgan, who threw an on-air tantrum berating Ms. Markle for “complaining” before storming off the set. He later saved face—for himself—by resigning, as he would have surely been fired. Which is good. Such people don’t deserve platforms. They’re closer to third-degree murderers than analysts—and I mean that literally.

This is all to point out that people listen to what we say and watch what we do. Many of them will be healthy, some of them will have non-mental injuries or ailments, and some will be one negative comment from ending it all.

Meghan Markle got us talking seriously about suicide, and in that she did more of a public service than any Royal since, not coincidentally, Princess Diana.

Excerpt—So Old a Pain: Depression in Fragments

I have been looking at some old photographs. I keep them in a shoebox that I rarely take down from a shelf in my clothes closet, but earlier today I reached up to the shelf and took hold of the box and brought it down, heavy with photographs and forgotten things, a receipt, a folded, typewritten letter, a cork with a faded inscription or phrase in red ink, and carried it to my desk, where I opened it.

It’s easy to forget the things we keep, what we save from certain times in our lives and don’t throw away, whether we store them in a shoebox on a shelf or a dark corner of the basement or a disk that only an old computer can access. At one point we must have thought the things worth keeping, however ordinary. Perhaps we were tidying up and making room for the new, the useful, or maybe we were putting those things away, things that had once been immediate and meaningful but that eventually became antiques, tied to their times and a previous usefulness, although still alive with meaning.

Of course, what we knew when last we saw those things, whether in the shoebox or basement or on the computer screen before ejecting the disk, was that we were only about to store them, or hide them, to remove them from our attention with a promise to return to them, to the meaning they would maintain and nurture in the meantime. Because, we acknowledged, it wasn’t us who assigned those things their meaning but rather those things that contained it and would continue to contain it so long as they existed in material form. It may have been that we

I had to stop there. I became quite melancholy writing those lines. I don’t apologize. I owe you nothing.

I am lost. Not a word.

This is not a novel.

“But that day I learned a skill at which I later excelled. I held back my despair…”

Video

Mindful

How would you rate your mental health right now? On a scale of 1 to 10—1 being low and 10 being high (duh, Jerrad), or 1 being poor and 10 being excellent—where would you place yourself.

And where—and this is a similarly important measurement—would you establish your baseline?

Honestly, my rating fluctuates throughout the day. If I take today, for example, I’d say I went through the morning at a 6 before dipping to 4 in the afternoon. Earlier this week I experienced a day that began as a 7 and ended as a 2. That’s a lot of fluctuation, and it’s why I’m exhausted a lot of the time.

For a baseline, lately I’d place myself around a 3. Things haven’t been great, although I’ve been able to function. I’d say at a 2 the tasks of day-to-day life become simply undoable. So I’ve been getting by. I’m hoping the warmer weather and clear, sunny days provide at least an artificial jolt.

But that’s a hopeful sign, isn’t it? Like, I literally used the word “hoping.”

There are times I’m glad for clouds, rain, and cold, because my emotions happen to match. So if I’m anticipating brighter days, literally, that would tend to be encouraging.

I hope you can also see through to better days. I wish the best for you all.

Have a good week.