#MentalHealth - life is a battle and then you die.

 A full blown narrative is sweeping across social media and journo columns. The story is "mental health".

It goes something like this. 

Mental health is now defined as simply how someone is feeling in their head. Mental health is no longer just about acute issues such as clinical depression, schizophrenia or paranoia etc. Mental health is also about stress levels, happiness or otherwise, self esteem, self confidence etc.

The narrative runs - there is no longer a need to hide your mental health issues - be brave and talk about them openly. You should not be feeling like this - seek help.

It then follows where does this help come from and who pays for it? 

But is this story going to have a happy end? I suspect not. I think it is flawed which is why I am writing this blog.

I am now going to park this narrative and go off on a tangent (or so it might seem) 

I am thinking that we are all animals. ( sorry if that offends you but scientifically it is indisputably true.) 

Like all animals - like everything in this world - we are in an inescapable maelstrom - explained as Darwinian Theory. Simply summed up - Darwinian Theory is " the survival of the fittest." 

Life is a battle for survival and then you die.

Many would deny this. Many will claim we are better than that - that human intelligence, our education, our moral code - societies common decency raises us out of the animal world. They would argue we have lost our base instincts through evolution (if they acknowledge we ever had them). 

However in my view - those that deny Darwinian Theory no longer has relevance in the 21st century for human kind are deluding themselves. We are all in a battle for survival - that remain our base motivation.

True it is a more subtle battle now in many aspects of western life style - we are not exactly killing each other for food - but actually I would argue that is not so far below the surface as we would like to think.

For more enlightenment my other building block - which I combine with Darwin is Maslow - and his hierarchy of needs theory. I have referred to this before in previous blogs.

Darwin explains we are in a battle for survival. Maslow to me acknowledges human progress and shows how Darwinian theory is taken beyond food and water and shelter and that other "intelligent" things are required for longer term survival - like to feel a sense of purpose - or to feel happiness. Maslow refers to a human need/motivation to find status and a sense of achievement and fulfilment - to engender a feeling of a sense of purpose and all those things that might lead to happiness.

So now back on the subject of mental health (new definition)

This is my theory - my take :

Put simply - (and I am not referring to serious clinical mental health issues - as understood by the former use of the description mental illness) I list the following thoughts :

• we all need to understand life is a battle for survival. 
• that life is not easy.
• that you will only survive if you are prepared to compete.
• once you give up the battle for survival your life will implode and you will die.
• while people may be able to help you, fundamentally it is your battle and and no one else can fight it for you. 
• it is a grave mistake to believe someone else can fight your lifes battle for you.
• it is naïve and damaging (however well meaning) for you to believe you can fight someone else's life battle.
• it will be damaging - destructive - to do much other than to emphasise we each have to keep battling and that it is down to each of us - our responsibility to ourselves. 

I appreciate this sounds gloomy. However I do not think it is. The reason I do not think it is happiness has its root in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The human spirit is lifted by a sense of, security, status, achievement and a sense of fulfilment. A sense of achievement and fulfilment is a feeling you get when you know deep down that you have put the effort in, that you have tried, that you have done your best. No one can give you that feeling - you have to earn it for yourself. 

I have often used running a marathon (a series of marathons maybe) as an analogy of life. The run might not always be fun - always be pleasurable - it will be deeply challenging at times - you must expect that - but you have to keep going. And when you get there - joy - a wonderful feeling. You will never experience that deep joy if you try and take the easy way out. You cannot run someone else's marathon for them and you do them a mighty disservice if you pretend to them you can. Life does not work like that.

So my driving point - I am deeply sceptical - actually very concerned about where this current narrative running on mental health is actually going and what it is likely to achieve.

In my view it is a big mistake to pretend life is not going to be a struggle - that you will not have ups and downs in terms of stresses, setbacks and periods of unhappiness. That is normal. That is life. You have to battle through it. You are NOT mentally ill. 

We seem to be developing a narrative where we are trying to pretend that it is not normal - that there is another way - that you do not have to compete in the battle for your survival - that you can wrapped in cotton wool - that someone else can do it for you. Most perverse - it is the governments responsibility - the tax payers responsibility to ensure you are happy - to ensure you survive the battle of life. That the world owes you a living. The "snowflake" mentality. This I fear leads to an ever downward spiral. A victims mentality - someone elses fault - someone elses problem to solve. It is not. It is yours.

Like everything else on the planet - like everything else in the universe (probably) - life is a battle - and yes - there will be casualties. That is life. Some people will not compete or throw in the towel. That is life. That is the reality of life - however sad. That is natural selection.