Was planning on taking the day off from IG, then these stories all broke at around the same time. The first one I did share in detail, yesterday. Then the other two came out shortly after:
1) Brett Favre opening up about his opioid abuse.
2) Cesare Prandelli, an elite Italian soccer coach leaving his position after penning an emotional letter about his mental health.
3) Jay Graham, an assistant coach for one of the top programs in CFB, Alabama, taking time away from the sport to also work on his mental health.
All three men are high profile, look different, are from different parts of the country/world, but all were open about their mental health challenges over the course of a short span.
Because we didn’t see: “Depression, Depression, Depression” or “Anxiety, Anxiety, Anxiety,” in the titles; these weren’t pieced together. Because it’s a better story for the media to paint these as separate “train wreck” cases, they weren’t pieced together.
Think about when we were learning as a society about cancer…about AIDS. Even now about COVID. When celebs share/shared, it is/was always pieced together. Not w mental health.
Are these celebs “crazy” (as we’ve heard in the one-off stories w Britney Spears & Lindsay Lohan, on through Kanye West)…or is the actual reality that MH a #5in5 topic for us ALL, each reaching diff extremes at diff times?
It’s time we get away from labels that separate us, & realize this topic isn’t going anywhere, it impacts us all, it’s on a continuum, & just like physical health, we have to work at it, daily.
How many more public figure stories do we need?
