AFL Clap Trapping Continues But Nothing Helpful

Those who have known me a while already known and those I’m getting to know will get an understanding, quickly, about why the “incident” involving Carlton Elijah Hollands on Thursday night against Collingwood has upset me deeply.

The 23-year-old listed as a midfielder/forward was videoed by fans, shown on tele and has been spoken about at length since he recorded on kick in the loss to the Magpies with reports of “erratic behaviour” and a “mental health incident”.

The first point I need to make is that this is not just more column inches to speculate about what happened or an attempt to jump on a hot topic for clicks – I am happy to leave that to the clickbait farmers and paywall wankers.

This is to look at the coverage of this and the real emotion that is felt.

As a neurodiverse person living with properly diagnosed Bipolar Affective Disorder (type II) I find the whole conversation around what is going on disgusting.

For years I have spoken to many people publicly and privately and do not shy away from my diagnosis and rarely use it as an excuse for negative behaviour. It is the reason I wear odd socks daily to the point of it becoming a career limiting move, I read of the people like Cobain, van Gogh and the like and follow the medical science and instruction of doctors.

This is purely to break down stigma within the wider community which brings an understanding and potentially even change language around mental illness

To see the AFL, Carlton, media in general and public reduce this to a “mental health issue” is nothing short of piss weak. All it does is write the poor bastard off as a nutcase. It dehumanises a young man who clearly has a long road ahead of him.

I perfectly understand that Hollands and his family may be wanting some privacy, but here is the inconsistency of mental illness.

On Friday night, Sam Darcy had his knee buckle in an uncontested situation. Kardinia Park held its breath and applauded the young Bulldogs forward from the ground.

By the end of the weekend the football world will be an expert in Darcy’s knee.

It will be able to tell you to the millimetre how long the tear is, what the difference between a ACL, PCL and MCL, probably send someone to measure the blade of grass he stepped on to make sure it was to AFL standard, whether his cat had Whiskas or Fancy Feast for breakfast the following morning and compare it to his father’s injury 21 years ago and the road to recovery.

Hollands had a “mental health incident.”

Darcy will be compared statistically to a random player from the past who kicked the same amount of goals on April 17 in whatever meaningless year it was and that he wore boots with 14 studs instead of the usual 13 and that a ligament tear of that nature is a one in million and he’s unlucky.

Hollands had a “mental health incident”.

The footy public will toss on, over and over about Darcy coming back from a knee injury last year that was slightly different because the doctor misspelt “medial” which could mean that his recovery could be six weeks less because a French doctor did the same thing in 2003 and Division Four La Liga player returned early and will trap off about Darcy’s rehab being perfect and his participation in the game after being declared fit to play will not come into question because of the work he has put in.

Hollands had a “mental health episode”.

The AFL will go to huge, painstaking lengths to tell the world that Darcy’s previous history with a buggered knee did not play a part. The same repetitive lengths that it is going to in saying that Hollands was not under the influence of any substances. Like it is so deeply worried about its drug culture that the first response was pretty much, “he’s not rat-arsed, we promise he’s not completely wasted. He’s just fucking nuts which is clearly the lesser of two evils.”
John Clarke and Brian Dawe would have a field day.

What I would like to see are these things:

• The AFL, Carlton and Football Media treat a mental illness the same way it treats a knee injury.
  The brain is a body part.
  If a players private information like severity, location, recovery time and cause can be discussed so openly that we are all Monday’s experts on Jack Ginnivan’s ingrown pube and why that meant he got 16 kicks instead of 17 or Patrick Dangerfield’s prostate that he needed a piss during the first quarter that restricted his game time from 69% to 67%, why can’t we learn about a mental illness to the same point?
  The AFL and Carlton have a massive platform to do some good in the community by saying a player had a hypomanic episode, a panic attack, auditory or visual hallucinations, psychosis and then use this platform to explain what it is.
  This means the Monday’s experts will know that visual hallucinations will make you suddenly brake up the main street to give way to a non-existent train or that a hypomanic episode will induce the kind of erratic and risk taking behaviour that is extremely dangerous and life threatening to the person or those around then and panic attacks can be helped by having a tablespoon of lemon juice of even a sour patch lolly.
• The AFL stop banging the “he wasn’t under the influence of any substances” drum. It has been everywhere. In the first article I read (can’t remember if it was on the AFL app or 7Sport) it was said at least six times.
  Stop defending the piss-pot and drug use culture in the sport. Sack this piss weak three strikes self-reporting shit and sign up 100% to the WADA code.
  If the AFL has to defend its players around drug and alcohol use it clearly has a bigger problem than it realizes.
• The AFL media needs to do better. If there is nothing to write, don’t just bang out speculative, repetitive and damaging shit that does not inform or educate.
  Use your platform for more than “Hollands had a mental health incident” and explore, learn, educate on what this means.
  I am sick to the back teeth of the AFL media and all it’s “Good Blokes”, “Big Units”, “Paralysis by Analysis”, “this MIGHT mean this or COULD SPELL that” vague shit where nobody is saying anything and just filling the space with noise and words that half the twats saying or writing do not know the meaning of.
  I’ve heard of fearless journalism in the AFL. LIKE BLOODY WHAT!
  The fearlessness to promote people who have been charged with violent acts against women and clear them to play or stick then on tele?
  The fearlessness to not hang other members of the media out to dry over shacking up with a former opponent and colleagues wife?
  Or the sheer gumption it must take to spew the same river of cliched shit as every other media outlet in the game?
  Must be tough!!
  
  How about showing some real intestinal fortitude and tackle and issue that caused many people to take their own lives each year and show some care toward people hurting mentally or emotionally. Nope, haven’t got the plums to put anything other than the phone number for Beyond Blue on the bottom of a story and hope for the best? Didn’t think so.

Lastly, the other challenge is not just to the football public. But every member of society.

Let’s make “We should all put our arms around him” and “talk to your mate” seem like not just platitudes.

Mental illness can be lonely, isolating and fuck me it can be frightening and time after time we hear lines like the above.

Who is actually rolling their sleeves up, grabbing the phone and following through for the Elijah Hollands, and the 100s a year who hit the lows.

I know, I have felt and I have experienced first hand that only a handful will do it, but I will guarantee every person who reads this one thing.

When you hit rock bottom in your life, you’ll find it’s a coal seam. If you hit it with enough force, you will produce a diamond but it takes a team of people around you to excavate it, and then you’ll shine.