Britain still finds it easier to mock mental health than to understand it

Instead, what followed was a depressing torrent of ridicule, cynicism and abuse.

Former Conservative MP Stewart Jackson wrote on X: “It’s called being an MP love. It’s what you’re paid north of £90k for…”

GB News host Tom Harwood questioned whether a backbench MP had any meaningful job to step back from.

Comedian Paul Cox sneered: “I wish Carla a swift recovery from doing f*** all.”

Journalist Carole Malone added: “Dear oh dear - not cut out for the job. Wonder how her constituents are going to take to her having a few weeks off.”

The cruelty was striking not simply because of its tone, but because it revealed something troubling about where Britain now stands on mental health.

For a period, it genuinely appeared that attitudes were changing. One of the defining moments came in 2011 when António Horta-Osório, then the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, took leave after suffering from extreme fatigue, insomnia and stress-related exhaustion. At the time, his decision was viewed as a watershed moment. Here was one of the most powerful men in British business openly acknowledging that mental strain could overwhelm even the most outwardly successful individuals.

Of course, there were sceptics then too. But the broader national conversation seemed to move toward understanding. Employers began talking more openly about burnout. Public figures spoke about anxiety and depression without immediately fearing career destruction. The idea that mental health should be treated with the same seriousness as physical health started, slowly, to gain acceptance.

Yet the reaction to Carla Denyer suggests that progress may not merely have stalled - it may have reversed.

Increasingly, there is a growing belief in Britain that mental health conditions are exaggerated, fashionable or over-diagnosed. Burnout, anxiety and depression are too often dismissed as weakness, indulgence or an excuse for underperformance. This shift has helped foster a culture of "victim blaming" in which people suffering genuine psychological distress are expected to justify their pain publicly before they are granted even basic empathy.

That is an impossible standard.

No one - apart from Denyer and her doctors - knows the reality of her condition. None of the commentators mocking her online have seen her medical assessments, spoken to her clinicians or experienced what she may have been enduring privately. Yet many felt entirely comfortable publicly deriding her for taking medical advice and stepping back from work temporarily.

We would regard such behaviour as grotesque if the illness involved cancer treatment, heart disease or a serious injury. If an MP announced they required surgery or treatment for a physical condition, few would accuse them of laziness or claim they were "not cut out for the job". Mental health, however, still occupies a different and less compassionate category in the minds of many.

That double standard remains deeply entrenched.

At Paracelsus Recovery, we have treated a number of individuals in politics over the years, and what we consistently see is people breaking down not from laziness but from the sheer weight of what they are carrying. In our experience, burnout is induced by responsibility far more than physical labour. This is why it runs so deep among carers, nurses, and those who hold other people's suffering as part of their daily work.

But it is equally true of those who carry a different kind of weight entirely. For instance, a CEO may appear to simply sit at a desk and take calls, but he is also the person on whose shoulders millions of pounds, and the livelihoods attached to them, rest at every moment. While that weight might not announce itself loudly, it lives in the background of every decision, in the tension that settles into the body and never quite leaves. That is what makes it so insidious and so exhausting.

The same is true for an elected representative who carries the real and pressing needs of thousands of constituents into every working day. MPs also operate under relentless public scrutiny, constant online hostility and long working hours. None of this means politicians should be immune from criticism. They absolutely are not. But there is a profound difference between scrutinising an elected representative's politics and mocking someone for acknowledging a health condition.

Indeed, there is something undeniably brave about speaking openly about burnout while knowing ridicule will likely follow from some. Denyer herself said she hoped to combat stigma by discussing her experience publicly. That willingness matters because silence remains one of the greatest dangers surrounding mental illness. The more people fear humiliation, the less likely they are to seek help before reaching a crisis point. It's well established that untreated mental health conditions kill. This is a life-or-death conversation.

What the Denyer episode ultimately demonstrates is that Britain still has a great deal of work to do. Awareness campaigns and slogans about workplace wellbeing are easy. Genuine empathy is much harder. It requires resisting the instinct to mock what we do not fully understand. It requires accepting that psychological illnesses are real illnesses, even when they are invisible. And it requires recognising that strength is not demonstrated by suffering in silence until collapse becomes unavoidable.

A healthier society does not shame people for acknowledging mental distress. It supports them in recovering from it.

Until we reach that point, I am concerned that every public admission of burnout will continue to be treated not as a moment for compassion, but as an invitation for contempt.

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Jan Gerber is the founder and CEO of Paracelsus Recovery.

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