THEMental health is everywhere. In podcasts, on social media, in celebrity interviews, in books, in advertising campaigns. We talk about it all the time anxiety, burnout, depression, panic attacks, therapy, vulnerability. Yet, just look at what has happened in recent days around Belén Rodriguez to understand that maybe we haven’t really learned to face the fragility of others. Because the problem isn’t talking about mental health. The problem is understand what suffering we are really willing to accept.
Why is the Belén Rodríguez case controversial?
The Belén Rodríguez case has reopened the debate on mental health, emotional fragility and social judgement. The central theme is the collective difficulty of accepting psychological pain when it stops being controlled or “presentable”.
We only like fragility when it remains controlled
In an article published on the Republicthe philosopher Michela Marzano writes that we all live, in different ways, “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”, but what woe betide you if you really show it. And this is perhaps the deepest contradiction of our time. On the one hand we have transformed vulnerability into a public language. On the other hand we continue to tolerate it only as long as it remains orderlyunderstandable, almost elegant.
We accept pain when it can be told well. When it becomes a controlled confession, a conscious testimony, an emotional narration that doesn’t make the viewer too uncomfortable. As long as the suffering remains “presentable”, then we even like it. We call her authenticity. But when the pain stops being manageable and becomes real, opaque, broken down, everything changes. Judgment, even insult, is triggered. Respect turns into aggression and takes away dignity (even from those who attack, of course).
Real pain is never photogenic
There Real psychological suffering is rarely linear. Sometimes it’s confusing. Disorganize. It takes away clarity. It can alter behavior, language, emotions. Even the facial expression and posture. It can make you lose control of your public image. And it is precisely this that today seems to have become unbearable.
When someone publicly collapses, the web often reacts with impressive speed: sarcasm, annoyance, irony, definitive sentences. “It’s over.” “She went crazy.” “It got ruined.” As if fragility was only acceptable as long as it remains invisible. Or at least well managed.
Mental health is not a performance
In recent years, psychological well-being has almost become a form of contemporary performance. You have to feel good. Be centered. Do yoga, meditation, breathing, digital detox, mindfulness. Manage stress. Optimize your sleep. Be emotionally aware.
All of this can be useful, of course. But there is also a cultural side effect: the idea that discomfort is always something we can individually control, as long as we try hard enough.
As if it were enough to organize ourselves better to never collapse. But the psychic pain doesn’t always work that way. There are times when a person can no longer “function”. Moments when the body and mind stop collaborating with the efficient image the world expects of us. And perhaps this is precisely what scares us so much.
The fear of recognizing ourselves in others
In her article, Michela Marzano writes something very true: often the judgment towards those who falter serves above all to reassure ourselves. Because what really disturbs us is not the fragility of the other. It’s there possibility of recognizing ourselves in that fragility.
The line between balance and failure is much thinner than we like to believe. Almost all of us live in a state of permanent overload. We always feel tired, we are hyperconnected, emotionally saturatedconstantly exposed to pressure of having to function.
And then seeing someone who can no longer hold himself undermines a very reassuring collective belief: that according to which control is always possible.
The respect we should learn
Having respect does not mean idealizing someone or turning them into a symbol. It means remember that behind every public crisis there is a real person. A person who may be going through something that we don’t fully know. Perhaps true emotional maturity isn’t just about talking about mental health, but aboutlearn not to immediately transform the fragility of others into spectacle, diagnosis or condemnation. Because we all, sooner or later, go through moments in which we need not judgement, but delicacy and solidarity (even female).
