In my last post The Second Coming & The Enlightenment of Darkness, I shared how mental health has shaped and scarred my life.

I revealed how it’s been the great teacher that kept returning, first rearing its ugly head in the early 1980’s when my mother’s menopause spiralled to mental disorder then derangement, to the degree I was left with no choice but to have her sectioned under the Mental Health Act. 

That was April, 1992.

To this day, that day remains, by far, the worst of my life – far worse than the day she passed away in my arms. She spent the last four years of her life bed-ridden after a major stroke, unable to move anything but her eyes and a few facial muscles. 

Her passing was her emancipation.

As dark and profoundly difficult those years helplessly witnessing my mother’s fall from grace were, and as much as I wish it could have been so much better for her, without them, I’d ever have found the vocation and purpose of my life.

None of this came my way through coincidence.

Yet the great teacher was far from done with me… or I should say, as I unquestionably call these experiences forth, I was far from done with it.

The second coming came decades later, when I faced my own mental health disorder.

Unlike my mother, who flatly refused to accept her condition throughout her menopause and consequential illness, the years witnessing her suffer gave me an awareness of how our inner world shapes our outer experience…

… and although I didn’t see the symptoms of my own issues immediately, I was fortunate to both recognise and accept I was the problem before too much damage was inflicted on those closest to me.

I found the help I needed to bring light to my darkness.

Now, some years later, the great teacher returns for a third time – only this time in the most paradoxical manner. 

Far less extreme… yet, for me, by far the most difficult.

It mid-October back in 2020 when I wrote a brief email to my community.

In it, I wrote. “My daughter needs her father today. Everything else will have to wait”.

Emily, my daughter, was struggling.

Her mental health, specifically around the return to school after the twenty-six week long Covid lockdown, was not in good shape.

Facing the plight of a mentally-ill parent is one thing. Dealing with your own mental illness is another. 

Yet as much as I could never say those troubled times pale into insignificance, they’re nowhere near as difficult as watching your then 14-year old daughter suffer.

To witness her sobbing from the pit of her stomach at the idea of going to school is something else.

Several things are at play here. This is not your typical teenage “angst” about school and the avoidance of all it entails.

On the contrary, Emily is a highly conscientious student who puts enormous pressure on herself – putting more hours into school work at home than she does when she’s at school.

We even had to warn her teachers during the first lockdown to stop her from over doing it and making herself ill.

Then there’s the usual challenges that come with being a 14-year-old girl – the major changes in body and mind, the need to conform, and the futile yet very real benchmarking of one’s self against others.

Not only that, there’s the unique pressures of the times for this age group. When I was Em’s age, back in the early 80’s, we lived with the very real threat of some egocentric totalitarian pushing the button with the big “N” on it and vaporising us all.

Today, Em’s generation have social media, on one hand an online utopia through which a diverse, globally dispersed species comes together…

… on the other, a platform by which the ignorant, stupid and utterly idiotic of a mostly unconscious species vent their ill-thought through opinions, spite and venom.

Then comes a pandemic, the likes of which you and I haven’t seen in our lifetime.

The consequences on physical health and mortality are well-documented. Less so – far less, in fact, the mental health consequences – especially on young lives.

Think about it.

You and I have been students in the “university of life” for long enough to have a decent level of mental resilience about the current situation. 

As much as we’ve not witnessed something like this before, we’ve experienced enough of life to have some level of awareness  – and the broader perspective it brings – to manage our mental health with an understanding we’ll eventually come through this.

We’re also far better equipped – or at least we should be – to bring perspective to the warped reality fed into mass consciousness by an irresponsible, sensationalist, 24/7 media engine.

Em’s peer group is not equipped with such awareness.

All they’ve known is the bubble of academia, and we all know how far removed that is from the reality of life. 

Not only that, their world of academia was turned upside down and inside out far more than most adult lives have been.

To a fourteen-year-old mind, the events of 2020 are magnified to a degree we find hard to imagine.

All of which leads to what transpired on one memorable Monday in that aforementioned October… 

… and why it sucked so much life out of me.

Warmly,

Christian

P.S. Sadly, my daughter is not alone in her challenge. 

Amongst other hastily held conversations on Monday, several occurred with the Headteacher of her year group at school. 

She revealed how she and her colleagues are seeing multiple cases, some far more acute than Emily’s, of students struggling to cope with the world as it currently is.

As I’ve maintained from day one, this is where the true cost – and true legacy – of Covid-19 will be found.

We need to wake up to it if we’re to deal with it effectively… otherwise there’ll be an eye-watering price to pay, not just in the short and medium term, but for generations to come.

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