feature – freadom

May feature: Activist’s anxiety and duty of care

When deciding what topic to write this month’s feature on, I was horribly spoiled for choice. It feels as though so many massive issues and events have arisen in May, all of which I want to sit and dissect: the Alabama Abortion Ban; Theresa May’s resignation; the cancellation of Jeremy Kyle; growing criticisms over Love Island. There’s too much. The concept of having to “pick” one topic to write passionately about filled me with activist’s anxiety – a term I use to refer to my constant anxiety that I’m not doing enough, for enough issues, in the world. We are limited in our dispensable energy, so where should we direct it? (N.B. I do not consider myself an activist in the literal sense – I am using the word metaphorically to refer to anyone who fights for, talks publicly about, or tries to learn about current social issues).

When Emma Watson gave her famous UN speech when she was elected Goodwill Ambassador for Women in 2014, she declared the need to take action toward gender equality and make positive change. Concluding her speech, Watson encourages her audience to ask themselves two simple questions:

If not me, who? If not now, when?

With this, I felt an urgency and a need to do something. I didn’t know what, but I knew I wanted to do something. That same urgency is still with me now. When I rewatch that speech, I get the same single of excitement for the impact I can make on the world if I channel my energies in the right direction. But what is that direction?

Back to May 2019 – it’s been a mad one. There are a lot of issues I want to talk about, but anxiety is holding that back. (TW: Suicide). The main chip on my shouting-about-stuff-on-the-internet shoulder right now is television; namely, the recent tragedy of the late Jeremy Kyle guest, and subsequent discussions of duty of care in reality TV. Like most people, I am in full support of the show’s cancellation. Have I watched it before? Yeah, I have. But I’ve also learned a lot and come to realise the classist voyeurism that it really is. Despite the defense that “no one is forced to go on” and “they get paid and get put up in a nice hotel”, that’s not quite justification for faux help show in which guests are consistently and repetitively humiliated, shamed and ridiculed. Oh, and guests don’t actually get paid.

The fact that it took someone taking their life for this show to finally be cancelled is incomprehensible, and has rightly opened a massive discussion around duty of care. Now, as we enter the preface of summer, Love Island is on the horizon alongside the yearly analysis of its highly problematic production and orchestration, which still has had little impact on the show itself. In particular, criticism of Love Island has resurfaced given the tragic suicides of two former contestants – Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis – within the past year. The extremely intense format of the show – basically Big Brother does dating – orchestrates romantic encounters and holds the participants captive on a ‘luxury’ holiday. Again, many argue the ethical issues with this are overruled by the participants’ consent. The issue there: many don’t fully know what they’re getting themselves into.

The internet right now is positing Love Island in a marmite situation, with half of people ready for weeks of binging the show, and the other half calling for its cancellation. ‘Jeremy Kyle was cancelled after one suicide – why hasn’t Love Island been cancelled after two?!’ A valid question, and one I keep asking myself.

Love Island and The Jeremy Kyle Show are fundamentally different, in that Jeremy Kyle positions the audience in power, able to laugh at and ridicule its contestants. The show even became its own descriptor for personality – ‘they’re the kind of person that would be on Jeremy Kyle’. Love Island, on the other hand, encourages us to idolise perfectly sculpted, socially adored people who fit beauty standards. However, that in no way undermines the factor of mental health in the show’s production, particularly given that the level of fame is much greater in this show, with contestants often facing piercing hatred online, clinging to them for years. Clearly, something needs to change, and this is something that the public are increasingly discussing – we now need producers to listen and act. We also, though, need to acknowledge our role in the Love Island dialogue, and cut the cruel judgements and criticisms thrown at contestants every year across social media. Omg, so-and-so is like really annoying and not even that attractive and needs to shut up?! Listen to what you’re saying. Remember the impact that could be having. And be quiet.

Besides this fatal issue, Love Island is not exactly well known for its diversity. One box-ticking POC each year and now one plus size model? That’s not enough, ITV. Whilst I’m anxious to denounce the show altogether when I don’t know all of the facts, I can’t help but feel my chest tighten at the thought of Sophie and Mike, and the undeniable influence the show had on their lives. It makes me uncomfortable at best. This, to me, feels not enough – to simply feel anxious and uncomfortable. At the end of the day, I’m not doing anything to help. This is when we need to give ourselves a bit of a break.

We need to realise the importance in the ‘try’ and the ‘talk’. We place such emphasis on doing enough, to the extent that we live in our own self-destructive all or nothing binary (what is it with this society and binaries?!). Mostly vegan people are slammed for not being fully vegan. Someone who fights against the barriers women face in management positions is criticised for not focusing on more life-threatening issues like poverty. We are all fearful of not doing enough, that we forget that the world is made up of small things and different things. Yes, there is a time for lobbying and protesting and boycotting, but that isn’t everyday. If it was, we’d live in total anarchy. Those small efforts formulate the granular construction of our existence. Those fleeting conversations are what infuse our living rooms with a better, more progressive attitude.

I will angrily shout about issues that fill me with rage, and use my voice and ability as best I can to do something good, but I will try to quieten that internal voice that tells me I’m not doing enough, or that I’m doing it wrong. If we’re doing something, then it’s likely not wrong, because it means we’re either progressing or we’re learning. That fear I got from Emma Watson’s call to action was not the idea of doing something, but the idea of doing enough. In realising the power of our small contributions, that mantra takes on a more accessible light. I don’t know for certain, but I’d guess that most social progress started, at some point or other, with someone feeling uncomfortable.

April feature: Feeling triggered by other people’s mental health

It’s 2019, people are talking, and mental health is on the agenda – at least, more than it was on the past. We may be opening up more about the labours of anxiety and depression, but many less palatable disorders remain unmentioned. In the same respect, we are often more open to discussing the ‘prettier’ sides of anxiety and depression; the self-care, avant-garde poetry and confessional tweets. In contrast, the darker symptoms and implications are left just that – in the dark.

I saw a tweet relatively recently why no one discusses the fact that a consequence of depression can be not showering or maintaining general cleanliness. A ‘gross’ suggestion, and also indicative of the aesthetic lens through which many people view mental illness. In this way, self-harm (an infuriatingly glamorised act which undermines the very illness it represents) is viewed more pleasantly than a body that hasn’t showered for five days. Neither should hold more aesthetic weight than the other, because aesthetics is irrelevant and dangerous to perceptions of mental health. Rather, these are both signifiers of a potentially fatal illness. Viewing them in a judgmental and aesthetic way attributes morality to mental health symptoms and closes the discussion we’ve worked so hard to open.

In the same thought bubble, I want to discuss the idea of being triggered by other people’s mental illness. I have seen very little discussed on this topic, but it’s a huge intrusion upon my life. What makes this topic so relevant is that it is closely tied to multiple other key points of discussion around mental health – namely, setting boundaries, saying ‘no’, triggering/trigger warnings, and the importance of speaking out. As easy as it is to shout about ‘speak up!’, we don’t talk about the person that is being spoken to. We preach about the importance of ‘saying no’, but we don’t talk about the request that is being asked. These conceptualised ideas are part of a very real, messy, complex dialogue, in which both parties can be equally vulnerable. Let me put the situation to you: an incredibly vulnerable person reaches out to another incredibly vulnerable person for help; the first person feeling unable to speak to anyone else, and the second feeling unable to cope with the proposed issue. What do we do from there?

In this situation, I genuinely don’t know what I would do. This is the perfect example of where ‘speaking up’ doesn’t quite meet the cut as a one-stop solution to mental illness. The idea of speaking up as a one-stop solution can lead to the person in this scenario, having reached out and received no help, feeling truly hopeless – that there is no other way out. This is why diversifying the dialogue we have around mental health is so important. ‘Speaking out’ worked wonders as a start-up campaign to get mental health into a wider social narrative, but we need more.

However, I acknowledge that even this proposed situation in itself is more complicated how I’ve presented it. It depends who each person is – for example, when my friends are struggling, I’m always more than happy, able and willing to help. If I am feeling vulnerable or unwell at the time, I seem to instinctively use helping them as a distraction from my own pain, and I fully immerse myself in doing what I can do help. If someone who I’m not close with is struggling, then I usually can’t deal with it – then comes the panic and self-imposed responsibility and blame. That’s just me, though. Some people may feel unable to support their friends but more able to support others by being less close to the situation. In the words of another common trope from the mindful discussions going about – we are all different.

So what’s the solution? How do we balance a world of speaking up whilst respecting the needs of people who feel triggered by other people’s mental illness? Well, there isn’t one. That’s very key to the discussion we create around mental health. To posit the issue of mental health as a problem/solution equation is to simplify it miles past its messy, congealed reality. There is no ‘solution’, but rather tools, support, opportunity, progress, comfort, aid, recovery. Recovery itself isn’t even a solution, because mental health isn’t that black and white.

I’m not here to slam on the growing discussions around mental health. I frigging adore it, and am all the way here for it. I just think we need to be mindful of how this discussion progresses. Rather than spreading the word until everyone knows it, we ought to spread the word and then spread the sentence, the paragraph, the book. That way, sufferers of mental illness may feel increasingly able to reach for and welcome support in a variety of ways, and in ways that respect both parties. We’ve gotta look after each other you know.

February feature: Calling out #fitspo and modern diet culture

This post comes at the start of what will probably be several discussions about food, body image, diet culture, and intuitive eating. After reading Laura Thomas’ Just Eat It, I genuinely feel that my entire mindset around food, my body, and my priorities has dramatically altered. Until this point, I considered myself to be a body positive fighter against ‘slimming’ teas, body shaming and unrealistic, idealistic beauty standards. Whilst I may have argued these points in earnest, I couldn’t deny – and still can’t deny, although I’m working on it – the pointless hours I had spent worrying about my body, what I ate, and everything in-between.

Diet culture is a strange phenomenon, because most people seem aware that it exists, but very rarely do we truly acknowledge its dangerous depths. Beyond that, it is easy to forget the many forms that diet culture takes, especially in modern society. It is no longer just the print advertisements showing the same body types time and time again; diet culture is woven into just about every piece of content we consume. I have made many attempts to rid myself of this toxic influence, ironically by pursuing attitudes and trends that are just as embedded in diet culture as those early forms.

Through my recent journey of trying to unlearn these toxic doctrines, it’s becoming increasingly clear that diet culture operates above all in rigidity, restriction and regulation. Whilst we may label it under ‘diet’, the more important descriptor is ‘culture’, since even the D word has now been rejected by many. Whilst seemingly a significant improvement, the result is in fact the masquerading of diets and diet culture under new trends, lifestyles and regimes. This is where restriction and regulation becomes important, because the new diet trends of our society all maintain that common indicator of an unhealthy and restrictive diet. Examples include ‘healthism’, increasing rates of orthorexia, gym-culture, protein marketing, and evolving body trends which now embrace the toned, big-bummed, skinny waste yet still curvy (aka near impossible) figure. These are all components of modern diet culture.

The dangerous thing about modern diet culture is its denial of its true form. Diets have traditionally been very open in their intent; torch fat! lose weight! get that summer body! Sure, many people still embrace these attitudes, but the majority of dieters probably don’t even realise that they’re on a diet. I certainly didn’t. When I carefully calculated my macronutrient and calorie intake, maintaining prescribed ratios and *god forbid* never eating more fat or carbs that I was ‘supposed to’, I genuinely didn’t believe that I was on a diet. I was on a fitness journey; a quest to build muscle and feel strong. What I was doing felt like the absolute antithesis of dieting; after all, I wanted to gain (muscle) weight, and I justified the regulation by insisting that this would ensure I ate enough, at the risk of eating too little (as I previously had done). Perhaps this was a necessary part of my journey from severely disordered, restrictive eating to a healthy relationship with food and my body, but I doubt it.

In reality, this was a way for me to maintain the same control over what I ate and how I looked that fuelled my under-eating in the previous year. I may have kidded myself that I was now in the game of gaining weight, but there I was turning a blind eye to the hour of cardio I did every day after lifting weights, the careful regulation of my eating, and the obsessive desire for a flat stomach (as if I had no organs to house). I believe that this is the same journey that many other people, girls in particular, are susceptible to. In the boom of fitness influencers and Instagram #fitspo, the thin ideal has been reshaped – not only are we told to be thin, we are also told to be toned, and have natural curves in the ‘right’ places. I’d be lying if I said my fitness goals weren’t entirely driven by aesthetics; it may have felt good to reach a new personal best on squats, but only because it meant I’d be growing my ass a bit more.

My point here isn’t to shut down fitness influencers or say that they are perpetrating disordered eating behaviours and body confidence, but it’s not far off the mark. I believe that these ‘influencers’ hold a huge responsibility to deliver fitness content that does not encourage a prescribed body image, fat-shame, use problematic terms, or demonise vital parts of our body like fat. (FYI, there’s a reason that female lower belly fat is ‘stubborn’ – it’s goddam supposed to be there). No one is denying that many people pursue fitness for goals outside of aesthetics, but in the growing popularity of before and after pictures, it’s time to realise that #fitspo is the new #thinspo, and realise our own responsibility to others and ourselves to not appropriate fitness and exercise as another body-shaming diet tool.

This all ties in closely with disordered eating, because eating and exercise go hand in hand. As Laura Thomas says in Just Eat It; if it has rules, it’s a diet; and fitness culture is certainly filled with guilt-inducing, regimented rules. Heavy calorie restriction and over-doing the cardio is just as much disordered eating as tracking your protein intake in between gym sessions. One may be more physically dangerous than the other, but both nonetheless inhabit diet culture and disordered eating. Perhaps even more dangerously, the disordered eating behaviours among fitness culture are masqueraded by language that instigates a false sense of empowerment. Protein-rich snacks are literally everywhere; the new golden star in food marketing which immediately makes a food ‘good’. In the dichotomy of good and bad food, fitness culture has introduced a wider set of terms; rather than just ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’, ‘portion control’ and ‘greedy’, we’re now bombarded with dozens of macronutrients, micronutrients, ‘superfoods’ and whatever else, giving that dichotomy even more ground. We live in the days of ‘cheat meals’ in which one chocolate chip cookie is both demonised as progress-inhibiting and sensationalised as the biggest, most exclusive treat of all time. How could such a conflicting, loaded and restrictive language of food ever be considered healthy? When pleasurable foods are limited to days labelled under a negative term like ‘cheat’, yet still loaded with the exclusivity of a wild indulgence, something so basic as a biscuit can become fitness culture’s drug. No wonder we end up knee deep in a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, wondering how the hell we got there.

Exactly a year on from my first introduction to weight lifting and fitness, my mindset couldn’t be more drastically altered. I exercise regularly because it makes me physically feel great, creates a satisfying tiredness that makes curling up with a book all the more fun, and most importantly because it boosts my mental health. Just as she encourages the benefits of intuitive eating, Laura Thomas also discusses the importance of intuitive movement, and how this can reconnect us with our body in a healthy, kind and genuine way. A month ago, a trip to the gym would feel worthless to me if I’d forgotten my Fitbit, because I wouldn’t know how many calories I’d burned and therefore how much food I’d earned (hint: food is not to be ‘earned’ – you’ve earned it by being alive). Now, I’ve sold my Fitbit (terrifyingly, a mentally difficult task), move in accordance with how my body and mind feel, take a lot less time staring at my stomach in the mirror, and feed my body exactly what it wants. No one can press the benefits of intuitive eating like Laura Thomas, so I’ll leave that to her, and say simply that having read her book has changed my entire outlook on my body, undoubtedly rippling into the contentment of my mind.