My Mets and Mental Health?

Some of you may be reading the title of this blog and thinking what do the New York Mets have to do with mental health. That is exactly what I was asking myself this morning when I saw a little title on CNN that says, "Mental Help for Mets Fans." Not only is this a story, but it's also in Time Magazine. I don't know if my book will ever be in Time, but alas my message and my favorite baseball team is.

I guess I should start at the beginning. As a youngster growing up in northeast Pennsylvania I had choices for my favorites teams. We lived an hour from Philadelphia and an hour and a half from New York City. So in a lot of cases favorite teams are divided. My dad really doesn't have any favorite teams so I wasn't bred to like any team over another. At the ripe old age of 8 I started to watch baseball on TV and low and behold that year the New York Mets won the World Series. As an 8 year old this was amazing to me! I was so elated that surely the Mets had to be my favorite team for the rest of my life. I bought all of the paraphernalia. I begged my parents to take me to spring training games when we were on vacation in Florida. I went to see them play in different cities. I have even stuck with them through some terrible years since I was 8. Granted I am no different from other sports fans, especially my Philadelphia Phillie fan friends who are definitely tougher than me, because they used to choke worse than anyone, until this year at least. For those of you who don't follow sports the Mets just had the worst collapse in major league baseball history, which brings me back to the point of this blog!

A fellow Mets fan wrote this article for Time. In it he interviewed about 5 or 6 psychologists to find out what fans can do to deal with the Met's downfall. There is actually some really good advice in there. And I know a lot of times people don't get why sports affects other people so much and this has been studied endlessly. For me I think it's a mixture of things. You follow a team for 162 days and it becomes a routine in your life, once that routine ends you can be lost as to what to do. For others they may project everything that is going wrong in their lives into the hope of having their favorite team succeed. As someone who worked at a Circuit City Distribution Center near Philadelphia I watched this in a lot of Eagles fans. SO when the team loses you're forced to go back to your life and if that sucks, well then you need another distraction. Also let us not forget that nationalistic pride in one's country also translates into individual sports teams. And if you don't think nationalism is dangerous may I remind you of World Wars 1 and 2 and just about every other war. SO what can people do. Well the article says to definitely feel the loss and make sure you talk about how much it affects you. If you don't it can come out in other ways, like drinking etc. It also says to start following other sports to take up a new routine and get your mind off how terrible the Mets finished the season. Another coping strategy that is suggested is to look at how competitive the field was and how maybe the Mets were beat out by better teams. (which is a total lie, but we'll let it slide) The article recommends remembering it is just the end of the season and not the end of the world. And lastly the article promotes a sense of community saying I am not alone in my misery. There are other Mets fans to cry with!

Overall this is a great example of how we can tie mental health into an area that isn't often directly associated with it. I mean talk about promoting cognitive behavioral therapy! The advice given for dealing with the Mets loss can be used in everyday life. Talk about your pain. Find healthy ways to deal with it and know that you're not alone. Remember any loss is not the end of the world. If more people opened up about all of their emotions on a regular basis, not just sports, then maybe it wouldn't be so hard to deal with your favorite sports team's failures! As for my Mets there's always next year!