Do you really wanna Keep Up With A K?

With Kanye West being admitted to the UCLA Medical Centre on the 21st November for exhaustion, following the cancellation of the remaining dates on his tour and a confession to an audience that he would have voted for Donald Trump, mental health and the general well-being of men is come more and more of an issue – especially where the Kardashians are involved.

Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kris, Kendall and Kylie are well renowned – not only for their excessively good looks and lavish lifestyles but also for their strong, assertive, business driven minds which have led them to their success. Without surprise, their feisty attitude and evidentially gorgeous looks has attracted a hoard of men into their nest. Ray J, Reggie Bush, Kris Humphries, French Montana and James Cordon are some of the few string of men associated to the feline family. However, there is a seemingly evident undercurrent that seems to be a common happening within the family - there has been a strange pattern whereby, some of these men who join the family, somewhere along the line develop, though some may argue that it was already there, just dormant, some sort of mental issue. Lamar Odom, Scott Disick and Kanye West are to name.

One of the most notorious and turbulent relationships that has had emerged from the Kardashian family is that of Kourtney and Scott Disick. They met back in 2006 right before Keeping Up with the Kardashian erupted on our TV screens. However, four years into their relationship, when Scott proposed to Kourtney and she said no, though they didn’t get married, they still carried on living together, building a family.

Even though generally there is always an off-chance that a woman would say no to proposal, the general assumption is that she would say yes because it is expected that marriage would have been a subject of conversation prior to the proposal. However, it’s clear to see from the beginning the Kourtney is the more dominant one, the trouser wearer within the relationship – this is seen even from my own personal experiences from watching the show. Over the course of the show, Scott became well-known and associated with his angry outbursts, some with violent consequences, his alcoholic antics, and teasing of Kourtney’s weight gain after having their child. In one episode, Khloe even joked that Scott could be a psychopath but could this have been a hint to a much deeper issue that actually existed? Though not officially diagnosed, there were constant comments made to Scott’s psychopathy throughout the airing of Keeping Up with the Kardashian however, just as they family would reach the end of their tether, he would have a change of heart and fight to smooth things over. There is almost an element of dependence on Kourtney, as if to say he couldn’t survive without her yet when he was with her, he would almost self-destruct.

Though marrying only a month after dating, Khloe and Lamar Odom seemingly had the ‘ideal’ relationship. A year after their marriage – which shocked most – rumors about Lamar cheating surfaced and cracks began to form in their relationship. By time divorce settlements were on their way, it was reported that Odom had become a drug addict, he received a DUI, wrote an uncanny song with hinted that he had been cheating on Khloe. During the proceedings, Odom was found unconscious in a brothel, then hospitalized and put in an induced coma. He then needed a lot of rehab.

More controversially was Bruce Jenner now known as Caitlyn Jenner who came out as a transgender woman in April 2015. Bruce and Kris had married in 1991 and had two children together, however, despite being together for over 20 years, speaking of their relationship to Vanity Fair, Caitlyn said, "A lot of times she wasn't very nice. People would see how I got mistreated. She controlled the money, all that kind of stuff." Rebecca Davison and Jennifer Pearson. (2015). Some may argue that deciding to become transgender isn't mentally related however former John Hopkins Chief of Psychiatry says otherwise. "This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes." He openly said the Kris was controlling and he wasn’t happy within marriage, if so then what kept him there for 23 years?

Diverting from the pattern but yet adding further emphasis this strange pattern is Robert Kardashian, the only brother in the clan. Being surrounded by such powerful women and openly admitting like he felt that he wasn’t receiving the kind of attention his sisters were, he too faced his own mental challenges including depression and excessive weight gain as a result. He has found himself in a relationship with Blac Chyna the ex-girlfriend of his sister’s boyfriend. In their show, Rob and Chyna, Chyna is clearly strong, smart and savvy. On the show, she helps him overcome his demons as he left the limelight years ago and has on recently come back.

Whilst the norm is that women usually look for security in men, they look for a protector, a provider someone who will take of them when they are in need, the roles seemed to have reversed and it’s as if these men are seeking some sort of emotionally beneficial thrill and inadvertently expose themselves to high levels of media scrutiny consequentially turning the quest into a counterproductive enterprise whereby they become overwhelmed by media attention as well as a demand to live up to certain unrealistic expectations. It is no surprise therefore that their mental state begins to be affected as they get wound up in the frenzy of celebrity world. While it can be said that men possess emotional resistance, and women on the other hand are susceptible to emotional predispositions, these men who have been involved with the Kardashians have depicted characteristics which counter this belief. In an interview with researcher, Vivienne Oni, she quoted, "there needs to be a rethink about the theory which presupposes that men provide emotional leanings for women." Oni, V. (December 2016)