With today being world mental health day (Oct 10th), I'm reminded by how much of a colossal struggle just finding the right path towards a healthy mind can be.
School can be an absolutely brutal place. Witnessing the naive and often unjust ways alpha girls and boys would exercise their power on the more vulnerable kids in the playground was a constant reminder that school was first and foremost a place you had to survive in order to then learn.
As the only black kid throughout junior school, and one of perhaps three in secondary, it was important for me not to become fixated upon how I differed from other kids, and instead, look for the things we had in common and could enjoy together. I figured that having friends in various different playground cliques meant there should be less chance of me being seen as an outsider who couldn't fit in, and so kids should have less of a reason to find beef with me.
The more I was accepted into peer groups, the more it confirmed that I was similar to them after all, which led to a sense of belonging and safety, a feeling that seemed important to have in order to get the most out of being in a learning environment. Acceptance from fellow pupils became a source of validation and self-esteem, which in turn led to having more confidence and a general contentedness.
As I grew older and my sense of who I was became more defined, problems started arising. Particular groups I wanted be a part of, and thought had things in common with, wouldn't allow me to join and often gave no reason why. The decision to yay or nay my requests resting in the hands of the more domineering kids in the group for whom passing judgement in this way was fun, but for those unfairly condemned it could be a soul crushing experience.
There was an obvious flaw in the soundness of my high school survival strategy. Was it wise for my sense of well-being and self-worth to be at the mercy and whims of the other kids? My mental health felt like a commodity on the stock market whose value rose and fell with each acceptance or rejection, reinforcing a hunch the world was just this indifferent and cold arena that rewarded the strong and dominant with the most freedoms.
Why should membership to desirable peer groups have such a powerful impact on my mental health?
I remember being 18, standing awkwardly in the garden of my friend's parents one bonfire evening. One of 10 blokes who, without any prior conferring, had assembled into a perfect man circle on the lawn; the work colleagues of my friend's dad, plus myself. I was shooting the breeze with real men of the world. We were getting to know each other through the mutual exchange of our vast life experience as we flaunted our checked shirts, held cans of Fosters to our chests like they were trophies, occasionally glancing behind to scoff at the poor excuse for a fire while we shooed away any giddy child that asked us to play with them.
By donning the correct costume, performing the appropriate gestures I'd seen other blokes perform, as well as regurgitating stock answers to most of the common ice-breaking questions a bloke will ask another fellow bloke he doesn't yet know, I could tell I was on the verge of entering blokedom proper, and was a hair's breadth away from assuming my position as a functioning member of the privileged patriarchy.
After about half an hour or so of trying to assimilate with these learned elders, I noticed there was one main bloke who did the majority of the speaking, and was the default focal point if you didn't know what to do with yourself; like stand properly, or hold your can of beer with a convincing level of manliness. Despite his irritating braggadocio, he was a welcome diversion that deflected group attention away from my poor quality man acting. Occasionally he would look over to another bloke, who I concluded was his deputy, for those moments when he needed his more audacious claims backing up.
An hour had past, the Fosters was flowing and I'd gained the ability to hear things beyond the cacophony of anxieties in my head. I felt at ease. I could focus on the actual content of what us guys were sharing with each other, and could think about how I'd be able to shoehorn myself into the conversation. So I listened eagerly for an opening in order that I could make my mark.
What I heard was a series of banal accomplishments, mainly home improvement based, presented to the group as though they were scientific breakthroughs. Disdain was being flung at nearly everyone and everything, designed it seemed, to exemplify their own strengths. Their incompetent work colleagues, their illogical and irrational wives they couldn't understand and regretted marrying, their children who were unaware of what good music was, the idiotic tactics the manager of the football team they supported would use. The weather. Modern life. Vegetarians. It just went on and on... The best I could manage was a couple double-entendres and an innuendo that brought a ripple of chuckles, but it felt completely contrived. I was being a fraud, ticking boxes to gain status. I did consider the possibility that everything they were saying was valid, but for some reason I didn't feel like I was in the presence of 9 Nobel laureates.
At a certain point during the exchange I felt a bit off. Waves of disenchantment about what the hell I was doing and what being a man actually involved began swirling around inside. Then one of the guys began regaling us all with the time he heroically got out of his car to give a lollipop man a piece of his mind for walking into the road too abruptly...
"Nah, this is shit!" I said out loud, fetched my bike and rode home.
