Funny Face needs social support not bullying –Clinical psychologist

A CLINICAL psychologist, Dr Isaac Newman Arthur, is encouraging the public to be more sympathetic to comedian Funny Face to help fight his mental health challenges.

To Dr Arthur, who is the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ghana Psychological Association, it will be an upheaval task for Funny Face to recover from his condition if the public turn a blind eye to his mental struggles and judge him wrongly.

In an interview with Graphic Showbiz on Tuesday, April 9, Dr Arthur pleaded with Ghanaians, especially netizens, to be more careful and graceful with their words commenting on Funny Face’s predicament.

“Nobody is immune to mental health issues, it doesn’t matter whether you are spiritual or you have money or not. And the truth is that our society doesn’t listen to the cries of people until something comes up.

“It’s not easy at all for your issue to be out for people to say what they want. And I think as a community, we need to be careful and more graceful with our words particularly, in the case of Funny Face,” he said.

The story of Funny Face battling mental health challenges has been an ongoing conversation in the last few years since he publicly announced that he has been diagnosed with bipolar.

Before that, the popular comedian, who had been embroiled in a series of online feuds with his baby mama had raised genuine concerns with some of his acts.

To heal from the process and manage his condition, Funny Face went off the radar for some years and resurfaced when he performed at Lekzy Decomic’s Too Cute to Be Mute show in 2022.

Many had expected that the once-loved comedian was back on the scene considering the good show he put up on the day.

However, at the beginning of this year, the positive expectations dimmed with Funny Face going back to his old ways and yet again, dragging the mother of his three children for allegedly denying him access to his children.

Things would get worse for him when on Sunday, March 24, Funny Face knocked down some pedestrians at Kasoa in the Central Region and was later arraigned before court.

Dr Newman agrees that the lifestyle of celebrities affects their mental well-being and without strong social support, things will get worse for Funny Face.

He argues that the anxiety of meeting up to the expectations of fans takes a heavy toll on the mental health of celebrities and it’s worse when you have already been diagnosed with a mental health condition as is the case of Funny Face.

“Truthfully, the lifestyles of celebrities create problems in terms of the expectations of people. The demands of the job itself and trying to stay relevant to be able to do well and maintain a certain craft come with many stresses.

“Then again, there is anxiety with expectations and performance. Also, you lose your privacy because everything you do is in the media.

‘All those things have a way of making the condition of stars going through mental challenges get worse than the ordinary person. The response of the masses and all the negativities can also influence your mental well-being.

“People can insult and say all kinds of things when some of the things they say aren’t even true. Dealing with all the negativity that comes from the masses affects you because you are human.

“If you are a star, you first need to be aware of your problems and adopt a healthy lifestyle that helps you build mental resilience daily, including letting people handle your social media pages, to avoid the trolls and hurtful words,” he said.