I was recently made to feel that it’s my mental health that’s the problem and not the system.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗
The question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I was recently made to feel that it’s my mental health that’s the problem and not the system.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗
The second agent I had said: “The thing is, you look like something but then you open your mouth.” So I got myself a sketch show and left, and she lost out.
There will always be so many who might say, “Ah, he’s a politician masquerading as an archbishop.” Politics is so all-pervasive, and in my theology, obviously, all of life belongs to God, and you don’t have compartments, this is your economic life, this is your political life, this is your religious life. Religion encompasses all of those. But yes, I wouldn’t myself have said I was setting out to be a political animal.
I was thrown out of a club by bouncers when I walked into somebody and told them that I was registered blind. They said: “Don’t give a fuck – you don’t belong in here.” As a straight white man, it gives you a taste of what other people have to contend with.
“Do you know what your problem is?” It was a dear friend of mine. They were referring to the fact that I’m impatient.
Five to 10, when I was just playing out and I didn’t realise I was a girl. Before my boobs came in, basically.
I would not like to know what my total massage budget is.
At a pub in Rotherham. I was a really bad waitress and I ended up being demoted to chopping the potatoes and I even got fired from that.
Big, shy, angry.
My mind is changing about being a mum. I got a dog and the way I feel about it is a lot, and I realise maybe I would want to be a mum.
My internalised misogyny that still manages to cloud some of my thinking.
Omid Djalili, Andrew O’Hagan, Isabel Allende, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Stephanie Beacham, Katie Melua
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