Saturday 13 May 2017

An Open Letter To Piers Morgan | Mental Health Awareness Week 2017

Hey!

Dear Piers Morgan, 


A stock image via pexels.com 


I saw that you tweeted about mental health/mentioning that the citizens of England need to 'man up'. I also saw via social media you had some very strong words to say about celebrities and their battles with mental and being gender neutral and I thought that I respond to your views with my own. I know that I might be bias due to being a young Millennial white male citizen who suffers from mental health problems and I know you won't care but let's be honest here someone needs to call you on your bullshit.

First of all, thanks for arguing that 34 Million people did not suffer from a form of mental illness. I'm sure that the Mental Health Foundation loved you ripping up the data that they had created for Mental Health Awareness Week into shreds on social media as you believed that it was fake. I'm sure that they loved you mocking the time and energy they spent to gather data to reflect the society that we live in today and the comments that you made about the data show that it might be more than 34 Million due to the stigma that's still attached within the media because some feel like they can't talk openly about the things that they suffer with because they may put down just like you did via the click of a button. Well done for that.

Second of all. I want to talk to you about this whole James Bond reference that you made which was absolute bullshit. James Bond isn't the best role model for men except for maybe the exception of the portrayal of James Bond via Daniel Craig within Skyfall. Why does any respectable male citizen want to look up to a character that is sexist, misogynistic and a plethora of other shitty traits that uses alcohol as an aid within their life. He talks about nothing and gets the mission done via all sorts of illegitimate means. James Bond is a character that the general public might look up to in the 50's but to say that citizens should still be sticking to these traditional 50's stereotypes is fucked up and wrong in so many ways. It just shows the ideologies that you have Piers and to be frank with you I think that you should keep those to yourself.

I also believe that the whole 'man up' comment that you made ties in with the above as back then no one talked about their feelings and they got on with their stuff. Guess what, Piers?! We're not living within the 1950's so sadly for you and your ideologies things have changed dramatically and just like your little tangerine sodden friend Donald Trump you need to think about the future and how things will change instead of trying to stick into the hay day/ I know that people like Trump helped you have a career in writing bullshit via articles but by this time you should have learnt to respect others at least a little bit or am I just being stupid there, Piers?!

Why should we man up? What does manning up even mean? If manning up means keeping our feelings to ourselves and portraying the hegemonic views of masculinity that the media portrays then I think that it would be better if it was called something like being stupid. Talking about our feelings and things such as insecurities and our vulnerability isn't a bad thing nor is it decreasing our level of masculinity. Not being James Bond or someone like John Wayne doesn't make us less of a man because masculinity is something that we measure ourselves and not something that the media should be drilling into our minds via middle class white men with right wing ideologies like yourself Piers so if you want to do that on your own where you're far away from the rest of society then that's fine by me.

I believe that everyone should talk about their mental health because if we don;t talk about mental health then the stigma will never end and ideas like yours Piers will end up being engraved in people's minds for years to come.

Finally, I want to mention this whole tweet thread that you dedicated to celebrities using mental health for a platform for them to further their career and brand as a whole therefore you're saying that mental health is used as a marketing campaign and I doubt that for the celebrities that you have mentioned in your tweet that they wouldn't do that. I hope that one of the celebrities take what you'vd said further because I think that it's needed. Mental health is a serious thing and you've turned celebrities who have tried to remove the stigma via the mass audience that they have into a large marketing campaign which is morally wrong on many levels. I think that before saying this you needed to actually research what these celebrities have done for mental health as making allegations is wrong on every aspect which every journalist that's working for a mainstream media outlet should know including yourself.

All in all, I think that you need to do way more research into mental health including things such as talking to people about it. I think that you need to try and have an unbiased view on things instead of being a stubborn old privileged man. I think that you just need to actually think before you say or type many of the things that you come out with but most of all as a young man with mental health problems I think that you shouldn't be saying the things that you've said until you've either done the above so you have an understanding of how it feels or better if you have no experience of mental health problems then you shouldn't be saying anything on the matter.

You took data that was gathered to remove stigma and you turned them into a story of silken spun shit which is unacceptable.

If you suffer from any type of mental health problems then please make sure that you know that there are people that you can talk to. Please talk to your GP if that's possible at all.

I hope that you have found this post/open letter interesting. I doubt that Piers Morgan will read this but I felt like this post was necessary. I hope that you check out the rest of the blog for other amazing yet interesting posts.

Thanks for reading! 
Jamie x

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