When Mark Davis found himself in a psychiatric hospital, he wasn’t concerned about his wellbeing or the state of his mental health. He only worried about how he would be viewed by others when they found out. He feared that he would be regarded as weak or unreliable, that he would be shunned and treated differently.
Or perhaps, worst of all, those around him might try to wrap him in cotton wool because they would see him the way he saw himself: as someone whose character defects meant he was unable to deal with life; that he was failing as a man. Men play a pivotal role in each other’s mental health. Credit: Getty Images It was the ’80s, and stoicism and the ability to fix things when things (including themselves) went wrong were harbingers of masculinity.
If you could not contain the emotions that lived inside of you, if you were unable to fix what was “wrong” then the problem must be you. For Davis, a policeman in his 40s, the harder he tried to right himself – working harder and enduring more of the terrible thoughts that occupied his mind – the more he became unstuck, unable to keep patching the illness leaking out of him. There were physical symptoms, such as a chronically upset stomach, headaches, impotency, as well as behavioural symptoms.
As someone who once prided himself on his good sense of humour, he became humourless, bad-tempered and standoffish. Loading He was also unpredictable. “If my partner said ‘would you like a cup of tea?’ On some occa.