To think that White Dee from Benefit St isn't doing people with depression any favours

[Bearbehind]

I've just seen White Dee from Benefits St being interviewed on Sky a News about the budget.

She said she can't work due to her having depression- yet she can appear on TV and is not ruling out standing as a politician

...you can't just pick and chose what you want to believe to suit yourself.

Only on MN can you read such fuckwittery...

Please explain that comment twofingers? Why do you feel it is appropriate to accept one thing and dismiss other things with no detailed knowledge on which to base those opinions?

I can't really speak for depression as a whole, because I think it has many different facets and so many varying degrees of effects.

I can only speak for mine.

I had it really bad for about a year, but i would say that I was up and down for 3/4 years before that. I felt like my whole personality changed.

I was so jokey and take the piss out of everything that went wrong, (and if something was going to happen, I was always the one it happened too) Then slowly over time I just lost my sparkle. I didn't even know I had, until I happened to look back at emails that were 2/3 years old, and I didn't recognise that person. She sounded happy, full of life, funny, fun.

I couldn't concentrate at all, trying to read an article in a magazine was furitless, never mind a book. Even writing this out 1 year ago, would have shown how choatic my mind was. I would miss out whole words in a sentence, and when speaking would stop half way through because I had forgot what I was talking about.

I got up every day for my kids. I made sure I kept on top of the washing and the food, everything else was as and when I could. I've lost friends because I couldn't face anyone. I dreaded having to entertain even family members.

I think the worse point came when I thought that i'd been let in on a secret, and the secret was that life is awful. So awful that making yourself live it is just stupid and pointless. I didn't get why others thought otherwise.

And know this won't be popular, but through my readings and research I came across things that resonated with my own personal experience. One is that depression is anger turned inwards. I was angry, very angry at my dp. The other was that to depress is a verb.

I do think that I lived in my own head all the time. I'm a procrastinator, I have circular arguments with myself, I ruminate ALL.THE.TIME. and the worst is that I take no action.

I was on tablets for 8-10 months. It probably should have been longer, but they made me really aggressive and fogged.

In the last year of being off them, I have really tried to change the way I think and view things. Basically I try not to be in my head. I've been out for a night out once in the last year, and only 3 times in the last 5. But I have made a lot of changes, gym, lost weight, kids at nursery 5 mornings etc.

I have a bit more fun back in me, but it has come at a cost. I am a lot more detached from emotion. I rarely cry. And i don't think my dp is capable of hurting me as my heart is steel as far as he's concerned.

...and dismiss over things with no detailed knowledge on which to base these opinions ...what? Like the handful of MNers who are dismissing her depression you mean?...

Why do you feel it is appropriate to accept one thing and dismiss other things with no detailed knowledge on which to base those opinions?

Interesting what you inferred from my post, OP.

I don't know if she is depressed or not. But I think that, if those that say she isn't depressed are getting told that they are not qualified to say that, that the same should go for anyone saying she is.

She may very well be, but she may very well not be.

Who can tell?

I don't think it's a case of anyone (other posters) saying she's depressed; I think it's a case of her doctor saying she's depressed. There's a difference.

Doesn't mean much to me. My bf went to her docs in 2010 and he signed her off with depression until 2013!

How he could possibly know she was going to be depressed for the next 3 years, I have no idea.

And I've known her for 12/13 years, and she has not worked during that time and has always been signed off for depression. I've never seen it, but I am aware that she did have it years before she met me due to horrific family events.

She doesn't even take the tablets. They're piled up in her cupboard.

Not everyone is honest about depression unfortunately. It is to me, entirely reasonable that white dee is lying, but it is not a fact I could prove, unless I knew her better.

The quote you posted twofingers was one where I had asked misspixie (who clearly just likes goading me) why she thought it was acceptable to dismiss one thing White Dee had said as bollocks whilst accepting another thing- I wasn't inferring anything from your post.

I still haven't heard a rational argument as to how White Dee can be considering a full time career in politics (even if it never transpires) but can't consider a full, or even part time job doing anything else.

I get that depression affects different people in different ways but surely if you consider yourself capable of a career in politics, there are other jobs you could also do.

I am sorry her mum died but she is enjoying her "celebrity status" rather too much. She even calls herself a celebrity . I didn't see the programme but did see her on TM and I think the fact she has an agent/manager (who is buying her a £7000 car) says it all really. Nothing wrong with someone with depression having opinions but going on tv and acting as she is? .

That's just it bearbehind. My cynicism stems from the fact that she appears to be too depressed to consider a run of the mill job but well enough to consider roles in media or politics.

I think it is a disservice to working class people to refer to that woman as wc.

Sillylass79 your posts are extremely interesting, your poem made me cry.

what you say about your mother is fascinating.

depression doesn't seem to me to have any rhyme or reason to it, like cancer, it strikes the rich and poor, the beautiful and the plain, successful and ordinary.

your mother had been through a lot of trauma but she bats it away whereas you are like a sponge soaking despair in.

it seems to me that some of us have a Teflon coating to see us through life while others absorb and deeply ingrain pain.

my dh suffered from anxiety but not depression. he goes through phases of being dark and we have had extremely difficult times but I seem to bat these things off me. I don't absorb.

I have heard people say that depression is a self indulgent condition and ' I haven't got time to be depressed' when I think the core of depression is actually the person is the opposite of self indulgent and selfish. they are the most sensitive and wounded of all.

us who don't suffer( or who haven't yet) are the self absorbed selfish ones because deep down we care first about ourselves.

haven't put that at all well.

regarding this lady we all know how this will end.

fame for 15 mins and then yesterday's chip paper.

I hope she and her kids can cope with that but I dought it.

Nothing wrong with someone with depression having opinions but going on tv and acting as she is?

Nice of you to think there's 'nothing wrong with someone with depression having opinions...'

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept indeed. I missed that as I skimmed the end of the thread. How nice to know I am permitted an opinion.

That actually might be the stupidest thing anyone has written on MN today.

twofingers I think you might want to read the thread and put some of your quotes into context before your repost them.

People on here have said that those making a similar point to me have been insinuating that people with depression shouldn't have opinions, which is what fatbakergirl was referring to (I think!)

Likewise, you appear to have called me a fuckwit for asking why someone finds it necessary to have dismissed one thing a person has said whilst unquestioningly accepting another, without answering why you have reached that conclusion.

I've read the thread, thanks.

And I didn't call you a fuckwit; I said this was fuckwittery:
...you can't just pick and chose what you want to believe to suit yourself.

What exactly do you think a 'belief' is?

But in the context of when I wrote 'you can't just pick and chose what you want to believe' I was asking why it was acceptable for misspixie to dismiss as bollocks the fact that White Dee has said she is considering running for parliament, whilst accepting as gospel the fact she has depression?

That's nothing to do with beliefs other than making the facts fit what she wants to believe.

I'm not generalising here, that statement was directed at a very specific set of circumstances. Of course your general beliefs can be whatever the hell you want them to be.

Well - the likelihood that someone in her situation could have depression is a lot higher than the chance of any of us become an MP! There are 98,302 people in the UK for every one parliamentary seat - I don't know how that translates into any one individual's chance of becoming an MP, but I think it is fair to say that, statistically, the chances aren't good.

In contrast, 2.6 out of every 100 people will suffer from depression in a given year, and 1 in 5 will suffer from depression and anxiety in their lifetime.

Therefor, just on the numbers, it is statistically far more likely that Dee has depression than that she will become an MP.

Oh give over Bearbehind! disagreeing with you is not goading you. If you feel that strongly about it the report button is right there.

But that's not at all my point SDTG regardless of how likely she is to become an MP, I'm still waiting to hear an argument as to why she can consider this but not consider any other job?

FWIW I think she'd make a fabulous carer/supporter or something. Her house might have been a mess but she did go out of her way to support a lot of the other residents and I think she has a lot to offer.

My point all along has been that I fail to see how she is doing anyone who genuinely is unable to work due to depression any favours by saying she is considering a political career when she is not considering any other type of employment.

lolaisafuckertoo .

Has she said she is not willing to consider any other job, either now or in the future, bearbehind? Is MP the only career she's willing to contemplate?

When she is well enough to work, is she going to tell the Job Centre that MP is the only vacancy she will apply for? Or is it possible that, even though she didn't say so during that interview, she would consider other jobs?

You can't judge all her future work aspirations on the basis of one remark.

I don't feel the need to report you misspixie I just find your tone patronising and condescending.

You seem to think there is a direct correalation between the length of time you've been on MN and the level of arrogance you can display to others comments but that's your perogative.

I don't expect everyone on AIBU to agree with each other, that's kind of the point of it, but I do find it unnecessary for you to make twattish comments like 'did you not get the memo' or 'I will do a short version as you appear to be struggling'

There has been a lot of food for thought on this thread but I still fail to see how WD can consider working in politics whilst not considering any other employment- you have done nothing to convince me otherwise.