A quick guide for frustrated Arsenal fans, and how to keep sane…

As a football fan, you are often emotionally immersed in your favourite team; the highs of triumph and the lows of failure can elicit strong emotions in you.

“What happens if your team just isn’t winning silverware and, like Arsenal, has gone 20 years without lifting the league?” one would wonder. Here are three things that happen.

1. You are left disheartened and frustrated. Every loss, missed opportunity, or near-miss in a title race can leave fans feeling let down and disenchanted. Understandably, supporting a team that repeatedly falls short of expectations can lead to disappointment and frustration.

2. You tend to have an Emotional Roller Coaster: Fans invest their time, energy, and emotions into their team, and the lack of success can result in heightened stress and anxiety. Each match becomes a nerve-wracking experience, with the weight of expectations taking a toll on mental well-being.

3. You are made to deal with social pressure and teasing: other teams’ fans will mock you, but it is never too serious. It is just for fun.

Supporting a team that consistently fails to win trophies can significantly impact your mental health. The disappointment, frustration, and emotional roller coaster can affect your well-being…

So, how do you ensure your mental health?

Concentrate on the journey, seek support, join in online groups, attend matches together, or attend fan activities. Sharing experiences and emotions with those who understand can provide validation and support, like other fans on JusArsenal, reducing the negative impact on mental health. You may overcome these problems and find solace in the passion and camaraderie that football gives if you keep your perspective.

Remember that rooting for a team is about more than simply trophies — it’s about a passion for the game.

A A Doctor

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7 Comments

  1. Could be worst. You could be Tottenham supporter and never won anything worth mentioning for a lifetime of hopelessness. So be thankfull for that. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. I feel better already!

  2. It’s just an entertainment. Our game of life or life competition is more important and interesting

    OT: Ornstein said Mount’s preference is Man United. This is a good news, because Arsenal could focus on a more technical or physical CM

  3. An unusual and welcome piece. I doubt the name of A A Doctor is the writers actual name, as the piece seems to have been written by someone who values and understands our mental health.

    PERHAPS then, an ACTUAL doctor? I’d like to know, actually!

    The phrase that MOST caught my eye was “concentrate on the journey”.

    In life itself, as well as in top class football,it is the JOURNEY that is your body of work. In other words, all the countless hours and years you put into improving your craft, which actually MAKES the star.

    The actual games and highlights are , essentially, just the icing on the cake.

    Let me put it another way; IF ALL YOU VALUE are the final end result, meaning winning the title or winning a cup, but you don’t also enjoy the process (yes that much maligned but realistic word “process”) then you deny yourselves MOST of the “all moments” joy in being a supporter and become – if you fail to achieve your ONLY reason for being Gooner, ie to win honours – bitter , resentful and unhappy.

    “ENJOY THE JOURNEY” is one of the worthiest comments I have ever read on JA. It is priceless and valuable advice!.

    And in life my friends, the actual MOMENT in which any of us live, is ALL we ever have to to live in and to experience happiness and fulfilment.
    Of course we can remember happy times past and look forward to happy times to come. BUT, real living, can ONLY EVER be done,in the moment and it is those moments that are your JOURNEY.

    Enjoy them if you are wise, as the path to ANY glory is YOUR PERSONAL JOURNEY.

    It is the only time you will ever have, for you are always IN whatever rmoment is occurring in your life.
    So, unless you value it , you are not really enjoying yourself at all.
    If you allow yourself to become bitter and resentful because your personal journey, ULTIMATELY did not reach QUITE where you craved that it would, you have still experience that joiurney, in the first place .

    So value it, OR ELSE throw away much of how you have lived, by being negative. THAT IS, TO MY LOGICAL MIND, THE SINGLE MOST SENSIBLE PIECE OF ADVICE THIS WISE A A DOCTOR WROTE.

      1. Chapo, Its heartwarming – and I am grateful to read your mature post- to realise that SOME folk ARE deep thinkers and can see that living in the particular moment is ALWAYS the only life we ever have.

        If we have our morals our health, our faculties, then we are are rich beyond compare.

        If ONLY WE ALL REALISED IT.

  4. “Supporting a team that consistently fails to win trophies can significantly impact your mental health. The disappointment, frustration, and emotional roller coaster can affect your well-being…”

    Teams which win trophies are very few among thousands. Are all those thousands of supporters mental health significantly affected?

    The good thing about football is we are quick to forget (unless those obsessed with Wenger and Xhaka). The disappointment is always there but it doesn’t last for long.

    Nice article and it would have been very useful if the subject was obsession of Wenger and Xhaka is not good for some Arsenal fans mental health.

  5. It is good to have an end to journey towards, but is the journey that matters in the end.

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