One of the great contributing factors to mental illness is the idea that we should at all
costs and at all times be well. We suffer far more than we should because of how long
it can take many of us until we allow ourselves to fall properly and usefully ill.
In a crisis, our chances of getting better rely to a significant extent on having the
right relationship to our illness; an attitude which is relatively unfrightened by our distress,
which isn’t overly in love with the idea of seeming at all times ‘normal’, which
can allow us to be deranged for a while in order one day to reach a more authentic kind
of sanity.
It will help us immensely in this quest if the images of mental illness we can draw on
at this time do not narrowly imply that our ailment is merely a freakish and pitiable
possibility, if we can appeal to images that tease out the universal and dignified themes
of our state, so that we do not - on top of everything else - have to fear and hate ourselves
for being unwell. We stand to heal a great deal faster if there are fewer associations
like those created by Goya (of madness as the seventh circle of hell) and more of men
and women a little like you and me, sitting on the sofa, able to combine our inner wretchedness
with other, more temperate and attractive qualities - so that we remain every bit human,
despite our terrifying convulsions, absences of mind, catastrophic forebodings and sense
of despair.
The best philosophical background against which to wrestle with mental unwellness would
be one that conceived of the human animal as intrinsically rather than accidentally
flawed, a philosophy that would resolutely reject the notion that we could ever be perfect
and would instead welcome our griefs and our errors, our stumbles and our follies as no
less a part of us than our triumphs and our intelligence. It is Japan’s Zen Buddhism
that has historically perhaps best put forward such notions, with its bold declaration that
life itself is suffering, and its veneration in the visual arts - and by extension in its
psychology - of what is imperfect and un-glossy: rainy autumn evenings, sadness, moss covered
roofs, stained wooden panels, tears and, most famously, misshapen and irregular pieces of
pottery. Against such a background, it becomes a great
deal easier for us to accept ourselves in our unwell state. We feel less guilty that
we are not at work and are not playing up to the roles demanded of us by responsible
others. We can be less defensive and frightened, more inclined to seek out proper care - and
more likely to recover properly in time.
With a philosophy of acceptance in mind, we can recognise that whatever the particularities
of our crisis (which will naturally need to be investigated in due course), our pains
fit into a broad picture of a crisis-prone human condition. No one is spared. No life
can escape significant troubles. Everything is imperfect. We don’t have to know the
details of someone’s life to be able to guess at the scale of the difficulties they
too will have encountered. We have all been born to inadequate parents, our desires will
always exceed reality, we will all make some appalling errors, we will hurt those we love
and anger those with power over us, we will be anxious and confused, woeful and lost.
We should accept both that we are profoundly unwell - and that our ailments are entirely
normal.
Japanese philosophy has another lesson for us at this point: we will probably one day
be fixed but there are likely to be substantial and ineradicable marks. And yet, these marks
can be worn with pride and self-respect. According to Zen Buddhism’s tradition of kintsugi,
an accidentally smashed bowl isn’t to be thrown away in embarrassment, its pieces can
be carefully collected and reassembled with glue inflected with gold. The traces of repair
are made obvious, celebrated and cherished, as if to suggest to us - as we bring a cup
to our lips - that we do not have to give up on ourselves or be ashamed of our own brokenness.
We can confront our illness without panic or fear, with a quiet intelligent sadness
perhaps best captured by the word melancholy. If we were searching for a patron saint of
such a melancholy relationship to mental difficulty, we could do worse than pick the Welsh artist
Gwen John, who combined a brilliant career as a painter with moments of harrowing mental
collapse - but remained all the while fundamentally on the side of life. From her self-portrait,
John implies that she would understand whatever we might be going through, her eyes hint that
she has been there too, that she could be our guide to the underworld of our minds - and
that, however much we might hate ourselves at this moment, we deserve gentleness, patience
and respect as we feel our way towards repair.