Feedback Junkie

This week the Government has announced its strategy for dealing with the prevalence of mental health problems in our country, the cost of which has recently been estimated at 105 billion pounds.  This number might as well read 'a gazillion' for all it registers. Nick Clegg's comment, however, "too many people suffer in silence with mental health issues", is something that I can understand.

According to the Government's definition in the strategy paper, No Health Without Mental Health, "mental health problems are problems with someone's mind that make it difficult for them to live a normal life", the paper estimates that one in four of us will experience mental health problems at some point in our life.  

To recap:
One in four of us will, at some point, have a problem with our mind which makes it difficult to live a normal life.

Quite a chilling statement when you look at it like that.

The website of the charity Mind (www.mind.org.uk) sets out mental health diagnoses and conditions in a convenient A-Z list (examples below). I imagine that the list would make uncomfortable reading on a tired day, or simply a factual list of the by-products of my life on a good one:

Anger
Addiction
Eating problems
Mania
Obsessive-Compulsive
Self-Esteem
Sleep-Problems
Stress
Worry

I sense that the list is ever-evolving as additional cases come to light.  Sex addiction, for example, was only recognised as a psychiatric disorder by the NHS in 2011, following extensive public discussion after Tiger Woods noted infidelity.

One currently unlisted addiction has been the subject of some ridicule in the past, but I wouldn't be surprised if it made a late 2012 entry. That is, the need for constant approval.

Smirk as you may, but one author, Joyce Meyer, has distributed over 3 million copies worldwide of her book 'Approval Addiction - Overcoming the Need to Please', from which I quote: “So many people these days have an unhealthy need for constant affirmation and are unable to feel good about themselves without it....If you want to be unhappy, uncomfortable, and insecure, just spend your life trying to do something that is not right for you.  It is just like trying to wear shoes that don’t fit.”

I sense that a large number of us do something that we don't want to do, such as being at work when we'd rather be bathing the kids, or don't do something that we do want to do, like being at work rather than bathing the kids, because we feel it is the acceptable thing. Interestingly, I also regularly wear uncomfortable shoes that don't fit.

Meyer's prescribed treatment is to work on your faith in God. She has found that God gives her all the approval she needs now. "Our desire for approval can only truly be met by receiving God’s acceptance and approval of us", she says.

This is bitter methadone for the feedback junkie who, keen to do the socially acceptable thing, was unsuccessful in convincing the church to Baptise her non-church-going children.

So what other cure for approval addiction?

Reading again the Mind website, I conclude that working on your self-esteem is the best action to overcome the feedback junkie in you.

They suggest the following 10 tips to boost self-esteem:

1. Stop comparing yourself to other people.
2. Don’t put yourself down.
3. Get into the habit of thinking and saying positive things about yourself to yourself.
4. Accept compliments.
5. Use self-help books and websites to help you change your beliefs.
6. Spend time with positive supportive people.
7. Acknowledge your positive qualities and things you are good at.
8. Be assertive, don’t allow people to treat you with a lack of respect.
9. Be helpful and considerate to others.
10. Engage in work and hobbies that you enjoy.

I buy some, not all, of these as treatment for approval addiction.  Point 5 is clearly just written in the Mind website's own interest.

Sorry Mind website, I really hope I haven't offended you by saying that.

Oh dear, I shouldn't have said that.

Instead, to continue Meyer's analogy, I say; find a pair of shoes that you really like and wear them in until they feel perfect. And, just occasionally, imagine yourself wearing someone elses.

Ps.) Why do I always do that? I've probably upset Mind now. Sorry.