Arsenal And The Little White Coats

General Diagnoses and Viktor Gyökeres Syndrome

Credit: Arsenal.com

Everyone’s A Doctor, Everyone’s A Patient

These days everyone is diagnosing everyone else. We’re all internet qualified psychiatrists in ill fitting white coats. It’s seems like half the world has gone mad (not a medical term) and the other half can’t get enough of handing out clinical advice on complex conditions they’ve just scrolled ten minutes ago.

And it’s not only individuals that we’re casually claiming are definitely sociopathic narcissists with a helping of ADHD. We’re diagnosing companies, organisations (not counting the PGMOL who we can all agree are all totally bananas (not a medical term), even entire countries are being written prescriptions on toilet paper (the closest paper to Scrolling Central) by us unqualified psychiatric experts.

I was doing it myself the other day. I started claiming that Arsenal, and the fan base, has a kind of PTSD caused by the trauma of not quite winning the Premier League for three years in a row. I claimed that our edgy and nervous reaction to winning the last four matches was a result of flashbacks and distress from seeing too many red cards and missed goals at crucial moments in the season.

PTSD from not winning football matches? What’s next? Send the entire fan base to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? Hand out a million bottles of anti-anxiety medication? And what about people who genuinely do have PTSD? Little did they know that going to football was equivalent to their experiencing truly terrifying events.

And the funny thing is, these days, as we’re all splatter-gunning our amateur psychiatric expertise at one another, is how much sense saying an entire fan base having PSTD seems to make. When I said it I thought, yeah, this is genius, this explains everything. But of course, it explains nothing.

What I think is happening here is complex and multilayered (not a complex, hold your horses there, doctor) .

Credit: Arsenal.com

On one level it’s purely a metaphorical phenomenon. For some reason mental health/psychiatric terminology has seeped into our metaphorical vocabulary. We’re using diagnoses to represent some truth about a situation we can’t really understand. Calling someone a narcissist is like saying someone has a broken brain, or have a glitch in their personality. We don’t like them or can’t understand them so we call them a narcissist even though most of us have no idea what an actual narcissist is, or the clinical methodology for diagnosing a narcissist, but that doesn’t matter because all we really want is a metaphorical explanation that feels good.

I reckon this rise of psychiatric terminology in our metaphorical vocabulary has come about for lots of reasons we don’t need to go into now, but part of the reason is a desperation for explanation.

(Wait a minute, isn’t this supposed to be about football — it is, it is, hold on, what’s the matter with you? Impatient Personality Disorder? — (Don’t worry I just made that up)).

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The world, and the football world, has become way more inexplicable and stressful. Things have gone crazy (not a medical term). We feel we have less control over almost everything, we feel powerless (mostly true). So we seek explanations for why we feel this way and, hey presto, our answer is to claim everyone and everything else is displaying some kind of disorder (mostly true).

Everything makes sense and feels better when we can sit on the sane side and point the finger at the insanity raging around us. Which, funnily enough is a pretty sane response to an insane world.

ANYWAY…in this highly stressful environment, ramped up by a trillion tonnes of “Football Content” flying at us from every screen (I know, I know, this is content too, but hey, this is Arsenal Wonderland, your prescribed happy pill of fun and entertainment with some nutty ideas (not a medical term) thrown in too, chill dude).

And all this content seems to be getting harsher and meaner. Everyone is so angry with everyone else. The comment threads under articles these days look like the ravings of mad people (funnily enough this once was a medical term back in the day). So we, as fans, who personally identify with our teams feel threatened and scared and confused. And what happens then? Fight or flight kicks in. We either get scrapping or withdraw. And part of the scrap is to dehumanise the other, claim they’re not fully sane, we start diagnosing everyone else at the drop of a hat.

And, in an obvious irony, I am doing it right now to some degree. Arsenal have won the last five games (drew with Palace but won on pens) and yet we are hand-wringing and worried about what’s going wrong. And here I am desperately trying to come up with some explanation as to why we’re not happy with being top of the League, top of the Champions League and finally in the place we’ve dreamed of for years.

I guess we’re all nuts (not a medical term but a perfect metaphor ;)

Credit: Arsenal.com

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT VIKTOR

Well, now I’ve shot myself the foot. My tendency is to immediately start analysing his state of mind, his mental approach, his feelings. But considering the above that might be a prime example of cognitive dissonance. Besides how would I know? Who the hell knows except Gyökeres himself.

So let’s not do that. Instead I’ll tell you how I feel.

One thing is I definitely don’t have is Impatient Personality Disorder (it’s still a made up thing). I feel like a parent and Viktor is like the kid that doesn’t quite make it, always just off the pace, not quite getting the grades, but I don’t care, I encourage him, support him, I even give him extra pocket money as a reward for just trying so damn hard.

I think Viktor Gyökeres brings out the best in me. Every time the ball goes to him I’m hoping and praying (might as well just get with the Arsenal vibe) something good will happen. For some reason I just can’t get angry with the guy. I’m manifesting goals for him game after game and game after game I’m finding out that manifesting goals doesn’t work. But I just don’t care. Just like him I keep going.

Years back I used live in London, often sharing flats with a few people, and there was always a turnover of folks coming and going. Gyökeres reminds me of some of them. The guy that everyone forgave all the time even though they broke all the dishes every time they washed up, or the guy who ate all your food, then told you how delicious it was and all you could think was I’m glad you enjoyed it.

I don’t know. I’ve still got the faith that Viktor will be covering his mouth with threaded hands far more often in the future than he is now (at lest he won’t be able to eat all your food that way).

Maybe I’ve just got Viktor Gyökeres Syndrome? What do you think? Am I just nuts? (feel free to use other made up diagnoses if you fancy it.) I don’t know. But I’m not giving up on anyone especially in this festive season of goodwill.

My general feeling is tat this is a brilliant team playing not quite brilliant football after a spell of dominating everyone. The flow will return. We will be extraordinary again because there’s so much talent on the pitch and in management. Let’s enjoy where we are and stop worrying about where we’re not.

Ok, that’s probably enough from me. Here in Sweden people say “god fortsättning” which basically means “have a good rest of the holidays”, so god fortsättning to you dear reader, and fingers crossed that VG will demolish Aston Villa as all the manifesting finally comes true!

Thanks so much for reading and supporting Arsenal Wonderland.