#but incisive negative reviews of 1D's solo album

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Maya was clear that she saw Liam's abuse as a result of distress that ran deep and his coping strategies with that distress. So if I talk about Liam it will be in those terms. ///

In her book she said some of the distress arouse from the contrast between his career and Harry's and the poor reception of LP1. I remember the same Guardian critic Laura Snape was very cruel about LP1 (awful 1* review) and very nice about Fine Line which was released a week later.

I just think the whole solo fandom thing is fucking toxic. The fans, the media, the industry ... all pitting them against each other and the same person coming out on top year after year.

Oh anon - I know fandom is notorious for blaming women for the actions of men - but responding 'Laura Snapes wrote a negative review of Liam's work' in response to a description of Liam's abuse - is taking fucked up fandom to another level.

But far more importantly - the way you present mental distress here You focus on the fact that Liam is being compared to other people and the fact that in this comparison external validation is not being distributed equally. Suggesting that if only external validation was distributed equally - if he got enough of it - Liam would not be experiencing this distress - is a model of mental distress that sets you up for failure.

(And of all the forms of external validation to suggest should be distributed equally - using reviews as your main example is completely absurd. People respond to art in all sorts of ways - which will always be complicated. When you put something out into the world you are taking a huge risk - including that people won't like it. But I'm mostly leaving that alone and are going to pretend to focus on a form of external validation where some form of equity of distribution would be reasonable)

External validation can be nice (although it can also be complicated), but it will not and cannot address the fractures in our psyches. There is all the evidence in the world (including within 1D) that external validation is not a solution to mental distress.

We need some kind of recognition - we need to do things people value and we need to be seen. We don't need, and can't all have, the extraordinary recognition that you describe as Harry coming up on top. Stadium tours, awards, even someone with authority engaging with and appreciating something we've created - those only go to some people - and they never have been distributed fairly and never will be.

Our mental distress lies to us - it sends us in completely the wrong way to try and fix it. Chasing after external validation as a way of trying to eliminate mental distress is a fools errand. Short term distress around rejection, or not getting something we want, or failure - is really normal. Learning to sit with that distress and get through it rather than running in all sorts of directions is a skill that it's possible to strengthen (one of the most important changes of my adult life has been experiencing applying to jobs as something that felt unbearable distressing, to something that was possible, with a significant toll).

Of course Liam experiences some distress at career difficulties - we all would. That's not what his ex-girlfriend wrote a book about. Liam responded to his distress by being cruel and abusive to people around him (particularly his ex) and seeking relief in substances that had a history of making him more abusive - in this condition he chased his girlfriend with an axe.

Our brains are lying to us. It's really common to feel distress and think 'I must do X then I will be valid and not feel distress'. That's a trap that will only keep people on a hamster wheel of distress - chasing relief that will not come. Even if you do achieve X it will not be enough - your brain will give you another goal. I think it can be useful to think of eating disorders here - the idea that being thin enough will cure someone's eating disorder will strike a lot (not enough) people as obviously illogical. The same is true for Liam and success (or Harry and success for that matter) and for so many people in different ways - if we chase things because we feel like we're not good enough - then getting those things are unlikely to make us feel good enough.

There is an alternative (although it is not to listen to that voice, and build our ability to tolerate our distress, manage triggers, and eventually heal some of the wounds that made our distress so strong in the first place.