 unfunny gag about pharmacists. The clip was shared online and by the time I got home from the studio, I had received several hundred angry messages on social media from disgruntled chemists. Within 24 hours there were thousands of angry and often abusive messages and a handful of death threats. It would eventually become the most complained about TV moment of the past 10 years and I was swiftly disinvited from all future This Morning bookings. I felt, by turns, amused, angry, ashamed, scared, exposed and humiliated. I'm fairly resilient – at least I thought I was – but the relentlessness of the attacks took its toll. I had to come off social media altogether for a week and ride out what felt like a suffocating sense of anxiety and dread. Everyone is vulnerable to occasional mistakes and – regardless of our profile – we live in a world where we can be publicly shamed for them. So what can we do to protect our own mental health in such situations? 'Men in particular often claim that criticism doesn't bother them,' says therapist and former government adviser Chip Somers. 'That's rubbish. We are still pack animals and we instinctively fear rejection. So the first thing anyone in this situation needs to do is own up to themselves about the impact public criticism is having on them and then work out how to process it.' From my own experience, humiliation can breed a sort of narcissism whereby you think your predicament is all anyone is thinking or talking about. 'That's what's called a 'hot thought' and it can be very dangerous,' says psychotherapist Noel McDermott of Mental Health Works. 'It focuses on worst-case scenarios that are almost always far-fetched. I would remind anyone in that mindset that it is just a thought, it is not real. Try to think about all the other people who have been caught up in si){kind=link}
Everyone is vulnerable to occasional mistakes and – regardless of our profile – we live in a world where we can be publicly shamed for them
Even by today’s bewildering standards, it’s been quite a time for startling social media pile-ons recently. Footballer Harry Maguire and GB News host Martin Daubney have both experienced very public car-crash moments that have received unrelenting and merciless scrutiny.
Deserved? Maybe. Funny? Certainly. But as someone who has had a taste of public humiliation himself, I can’t help but empathise with the individuals concerned who will – whether they admit it or not – have to struggle with the mental health fallout while they wait for the storm to pass.
Maguire has been the subject of mass public ridicule for a couple of years now, thanks largely to his hapless form for Manchester United.
His last “safe-space”, it seemed, was the England team, where he at least had the confidence of manager Gareth Southgate and affection of most supporters. But then, on Tuesday night, he was brought on as a substitute against fierce rivals Scotland and swiftly scored a comedic own goal. The response of Scotland fans in the stadium and keyboard warriors on social media was swift and brutal. At this stage, Maguire would be forgiven for thinking his bad luck might never end.