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Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

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Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#121
post #14

I re-read most of the stories a few years ago. It's shocking/surprising/depressing just how many things repeat themselves. From the obvious, veteran of Afghanistan war in the form of Dr. Watson, to London being a melting pot of so many cultures, with high society reigning from ... on high. I also agree that the view directly into the state of mind of both Watson and Holmes was refreshing.

Realising current day events rhyme very closely with historical events is pretty eye opening. It’s a tragedy of the commons we are all largely oblivious as a species.

Is there a better history pedagogy? I remember history as a set of dates and Kings. Only later I learned about Roman demagoguery, the relationship between newly independant India to present day and other topics that teach there is nothing new under the sun.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#123
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question is -> why do we need that guard in the first place? Is this about other people being immature or looking to abuse us? Is this something that generally goes beyond school?

> Is this something that generally goes beyond school? The things that make you vulnerable change depending on what year and situation you're in. I can very much get behind the idea that you should consider whether your legacy sense of what makes you vulnerable is relevant to your current circumstances. I'm not so much behind the "freely dispense the rope people will use to hang you" version.

There's a lot of abstraction in this thread, but I would like to hear specifics.

What are the exact vulnerabilities that we are talking about?

From my side I guess I can say I frequently feel like impostor type of things or that I'm not doing enough. I won't mention that at work, but I definitely share those feelings to my partner.

I would hate not being able to share something like that to my partner for instance.

I wonder what others are talking about?

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#125
post #24
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'd be surprised if the people I worked with would think twice before working with someone that's been in psychiatric care, though I can't be sure, because I don't know that any of them did. I know that I wouldn't care. I have friends that stayed in hospitals for psychiatric reasons: they'd be great to work with, I think.

It’s still definitely a big deal. Note that the CIA and the NSA routinely declare ex-employees that whistleblow or leak as “mentally ill.”

It depends on the company. I worked for fairly “stolid” companies, for most of my career, and I suspect that they would treat mentally-ill people badly.

Mental illness is something that, unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with. I have severe mental illness in my family (I deal with it every day), and I spend a significant part of my life, interacting with folks at various stages of recovery from it.

I have been seeing therapists for much of my life. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with autism, but was never told, so I spent decades, trying to “fix” myself, before finding out. Once I found out that I was “on the spectrum,” I realized that it can’t be “fixed”; only mitigated, and things started improving quickly, at that point.

That said, I think “mentally-ill” means “diagnosed and professionally-treated,” to most folks. It’s my opinion, that there’s a lot of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness out there. Just looking at the threads of interaction, on any Internet community, makes that clear. One “tell,” that I have encountered, is when someone has extremely strong opinions on psychiatry. It’s not something most folks even think about, so it’s unusual, when it’s a big deal to someone.

Mental illness also tends to get worse, as we get older, if untreated. An “eccentric” young man, may become an old hermit, flying around, keeping his piss in canopic jars.

Much of what we call “mental illness,” is actually self-developed coping mechanisms, in response to trauma, or brain-chemistry imbalance. That’s why getting medication doesn’t just “fix” us. We need to seek help in defusing the habits and rituals that were developed to help deal with the problem.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#126

> [Holmes] battles with drug addiction, loneliness and depression. His genius thrives in part because of these vulnerabilities, not despite them. If there was a pill for that, how many masterpieces like the Sherlock Holmes books would never be made? The products of misery have always been the devil's advocate's best arguments. If Doyle had not sympathized with Holmes' afflictions, he could not have written him. Or if…

This is 100% not true. > An effective education requires a certain amount of torture, and it works better when self inflicted. It's the tortured artist myth. You can turn pain into art but it's not a prerequisite.

Yeh, I agree with this. My art (painting and building) comes at a much faster rate when I am content. Having time and metal space to contemplate colour scheme, being confident to start something bold: that doesn't happen if I am tired, preoccupied or depressed

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#127
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At work, like all the time? Empowerment, values, growth mindset, psychological safety, mindfulness, emotional intelligence...

Half of these aren't people talking about mental health problems , but preconditions for mental health. That's your problem?

Seems like we both agree that psychological language can be common in everyday offline life, such as at work for a large company. I don't have a problem with it, not sure where you got that from.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#128
post #63
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are under attack, vulnerability is bad. Historic ‘stoic male’ personas existed for a reason. Because in many situations, it works. Despite the complaining. And being less ‘emotionally connected’ is valuable when people use that connection to exploit or hurt you. A very common experience for many men. That people (especially women) then complain you won’t open up to them is a riot in those situations because it…

> Historic ‘stoic male’ personas existed for a reason. What are you talking about here. "Historic male persona" differs between periods and places, but anger, friendships and happiness are basically always parts of it. Odysseus "weeps" and "cries". The whole romantic era was about overly emotional, passionate and sensitive guys.

Homer predates the stoics by several centuries, so that makes sense. Though I do think Homer does make a solid case of traditional male ideals being fairly emotional, and this is something that persists to modern day.

Achilles in particular spends half the Iliad sulking in his tent, and the other half making shish kebabs out of the Trojan army on a tireless revenge-rampage where he's so goddamn angry he picks a fight with a river.

These types of characters are still written today, John Wick is something of a superficial parallel.

Though it could be argued that Achilles lengthy sulking is diva behavior, few would argue Captain Kirk is effeminate because he's more emotionally driven than Spock, who in many ways turns the stoic ideals up to 11. Likely because despite occasionally chewing the scenery with emotional moments, he is still ultimately in control.

(It's also worth noting that neither Achilles or Odysseus were likely intended as ideals, but rather tragic extremes, and Homer's works largely deal with the consequences of their personalities; the pride and rage of Achilles like we just discussed, the pathological distrust and constant scheming of Odysseus protracting his journey and being the true source of many of his countless obstacles)

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#129

> [Holmes] battles with drug addiction, loneliness and depression. His genius thrives in part because of these vulnerabilities, not despite them. If there was a pill for that, how many masterpieces like the Sherlock Holmes books would never be made? The products of misery have always been the devil's advocate's best arguments. If Doyle had not sympathized with Holmes' afflictions, he could not have written him. Or if…

This is 100% not true. > An effective education requires a certain amount of torture, and it works better when self inflicted. It's the tortured artist myth. You can turn pain into art but it's not a prerequisite.

Quite the opposite in fact. Throughout history the most successful artists have been the well funded ones.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#130
One reason I like CBS’s Elementary’s depiction of Sherlock (maybe more so than BBC’s Sherlock) is because how Elementary treats Sherlock’s mental health and addiction recovery as central to the character. As great as Sherlock is at solving cases, he still struggles greatly to handle his own mental health and addiction recovery, which makes him more grounded to earth.
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