We need to talk about Fizzy
I don’t have the time to write out all my thoughts and frustrations about the Sun, it’s business model, and its sensationalist reporting tactics - just do not give them your clicks.
But I also don’t want to stay completely silent about all this, and while I was trying to sift out my thoughts and come up with sensitive wording about why it is that I feel we need to talk, @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram wrote it better than I can right now:
“drug addiction is one response to pain and trauma”, “there is no shame in having been harmed by this dangerous difficult world we live in”, and it is important “to fight the way silence reinforces the shame and stigma around addiction” - and other mental health issues , I would add.
- Stigma kills - diagnoses in mental health are much debated and there’s a lot of stigma and misleading information around the internet about mental ill health so make sure you get your information from high quality, nuanced sources, like this one: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/a-z-mental-health/
- Taboo kills - we need to talk about mental health, and about our problems. It is NOT okay to publish the amount of detail the Sun has in the way that it has, because Fizzy could not consent to that and I doubt her family has. The violation here is in the lack of consent given - not in the fact that these things are shameful and should remain hidden. That’s such an important nuance to keep in mind when people talk about this as a violation of privacy. It’s not shameful, it doesn’t have to remain private, we should talk about it, but not without consent.
So while it’s NOT okay to theorize and hypothesize about someone who can no longer give their own view, and whom we never met in person, it IS important to have good information about mental health, it IS important to take away the stigma and it a good thing to discuss issues like addiction, drug use, eating disorders and all types of mental health issues in general openly because having to deal with one of these doesn’t make you a bad person, we all have issues to deal with, and talking about them makes them easier to deal with.
Let’s focus on the positive and say that this fandom IS a good place for that. Kudos to Niall for talking about his OCD, and Gemma about her depression and Anne about her grief. All of this while paying respect to people who aren’t ready talk about the issues they are dealing with: mental health is a tough thing, but one precondition for it to be good is that you are not forced to speak out about things you don’t want to speak about. Fuck you Sun.
- If you have issues you are dealing with: talk about them with someone. If this article gives you anxiety like it did me: talk about it with someone. If you are worried about a friend: talk to them. If you’re a recreational drug user but feel like you’re losing control a bit: talk about it to someone. There is no shame in any of that.
- Grief is a weird thing that does crazy things to you, it may help to understand more about the process, like here: https://funeralresources.com/grief-and-loss/five-stages-of-grief/
- If you don’t feel like you have someone to talk to, there are helplines and websites where you can find nice and friendly and knowledgeable people to talk to, like here: https://www.mhe-sme.org/library/youth-helplines/ and https://www.childhelplineinternational.org/child-helplines/child-helpline-network/
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: never let someone’s mental health issue obscure your view and appreciation of them as a person. It is important to remember the whole person, and I want to remember Fizzy as the talented
beautiful
engaged:
supportive
thoughtful and outspoken
and fierce defender of women’s rights that she was.