Rugby star Owen Farrell has taken time out from playing for England to prioritise his mental wellbeing.
A very modern way of admitting that he needs a rest.
“A rest?” you might well ask. “A rest from what? He plays sport for a living. He’s never done a proper day’s graft in his life.”
Which is one way of looking at it. Not a healthy one, in my opinion at least, but legitimate none the same, because we all tend to see the issues others face – maybe even more so when those others are famous – through the prism of our own experiences.
So if we have a heavy manual job, or maybe we make a living doing something that doesn’t make us happy, we might imagine that someone like Farrell has it made, that it must be a dream to run about staying fit every day.
I get that. As someone whose day job as a journalist is the thing I wanted to do from the age of eight, it sometimes feels like it’s not really a job, it’s the chance to travel the world and write about major sporting and political events.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to me sometimes, not least in an era when social media means criticism of what you do can come from every angle, 24/7. And this same external bombardment has, I’d guess, played a major part in Farrell taking time out from the international sporting spotlight.
On the eve of his country’s World Cup campaign earlier this year, he was sent off in an warm-up match against Wales. The criticism he received in newspapers, on radio and TV, harnessed to a torrent of abuse that came his way online was as ferocious as it has become predictable in cases such as these.
As someone who makes a living offering opinions in a national newspaper, it would be hypocritical of me to censure other journalists for going too far in their reaction to Farrell’s offence, because I’m well aware of my own excesses when the pen gets hot.
There is, however, a line between even the most outspoken criticism in what we might call ‘official’ media outlets and the kind of language used on social media sites. That line is drawn by the law; if I go too far, if I defame someone’s character or write untruths, the writs will fly and there will be a price to pay.
Call someone what you like on X or Instagram, Facebook or whatever other platform and unless you break a criminal law through, for instance, racist language or outright threats, there’s very little comeback on the victim’s part.
I know this to the cost of my own mental health down the years. The only remedy is to come off the sites, which in terms of my work I did years ago.
Still, even then, there will be many who shrug that someone famous, someone who ‘puts themselves out there’ should be able to take it, that they’re fair game. Again, I’d disagree wholeheartedly, but it’s a mindset that’s clearly very, very widely held across the world these days. And it’s forcing more and more sports stars, actors and musicians to seek shelter in the form of the ‘break to prioritise my mental wellness’.
Every time it happens – as in the recent cases of Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and swimmer Adam Peaty – the same trolls come out in force to accuse them of being ‘weak’, or ‘lacking resilience’.
Well, here is the news.
Those who think this way could not be further from the truth. Because stepping away from stress, from anxiety, from the levels of external noise Farrell has faced, is a STRENGTH, not a weakness.
When helping others with their mental health, I often ask them to quite literally move away from their anxiety. If they’re beginning to panic, to get edgy, to catastrophise, I’ll suggest they shift to a different seat and leave those damaging thoughts behind them.
That may sound gimmicky, but it works, in the same way as it often works when I suggest writing down thoughts that make us anxious, then to screw the paper up and throw it away.
In terms of external abuse, the key is to realise that whatever is being said is not our problem, the problem belongs to the abuser.
In terms of internal feelings, the key is to detach ourselves from them, not to let them become part of us.
In both cases, all we’re dealing with are thoughts, not facts. We are not what the anonymous stranger says we are. We are not our anxiety.
I hope this is what Owen Farrell uses his time out to realise, to accept, even to embrace. That he’s not a bad person, just someone who – something like ten years into a terrific international career – make a mistake that had a negative impact on himself and his team-mates.
That’s it. A mistake. And if we weren’t meant to make mistakes, there wouldn’t be a rubber on the end of our pencil.
If others can’t accept this, if they choose to project their own anger or prejudices or ignorance onto us, then my advice is to step away from them. Delete, block, remove.
And never, ever be scared to take ourselves out of the firing line, to take time away from whatever it is that’s causing us pain.
After all, if we had a broken arm, we wouldn’t try to keep trying to use to prove how strong we were. No, we’d get signed off by the doctor until it healed. In the same, when our heads feel damaged, a few days of rest and recuperation, a little bit of distance, can do us the world of good.
Whether or not Owen Farrell returns to international rugby is for him to decide. But whatever he does, his time away will allow him to make the decision with a clearer head and on his own terms.