Janet Street Porter Calls Depression a Trendy Middle Class Fad

[dizietsma]

link

Sorry if I'm duplicating any threads here, but I've only just heard about this disgusting article.

'and frankly, the whole point of depression is it is unhappiness with no defined cause

clinical depression yes; we also have reactive depression which often stems from a defined cause but where the response is more severe or longer alsting than would be expected: for example I vo0lunteer with carers and only could count a couple who are not on anti-depresants; that would be reactive.

The article appears in the Daily Mail - need I say more?

what a foolish article.

I have not read the article - and I really really believe depression is a terrible illness for those that have it. Particularly as those in the worst sate are the least likely to seek help

However, I do think the term is overused. Many people claim to have depression when they a bit down or overwhelmed etc.

JSP, for example, is a twat.

The article is riddled with stereotypes and is extremely patronising. What an idiot. This attempt to plug her stupid books has failed miserably as the last thing I'd want to hear is pull yourself together. Plus she is lucky enough to have never experienced depression, or she would never have said that. Unfeeling bitch is about right. So much for sisterhood!

That article is all over the place are there no editors at the DM. The shameless plug for her books, one of which is available in our local bargain bookstore. Find 50p but no need to rush there's a huge pile.

I don't buy that the poorest in the world are immune from depression, or that if they are depressed then it's to be expected cos their lives are crap. Depression as I experienced it is a feeling beyond common or garden "I'm poor so my life is hard".

Whilst I haven't experienced anything close to the poverty experienced by the poorest in developing nations, I have been homeless twice, so think I have some perspective on "life is hard because I'm really poor" feelings and "I'm a worthless piece of shit who deserves to die" feelings. They are distinct, although they are often seen together.

Wow, what an ignorant, deliberately inflammatory article - but there, it IS the DM. I am disappointed in JSP. No wonder none of her friends admit to suffering from depression, if this is her attitude. Articles like that do tremendous harm - my mother is one of those 'pull yourself together' types - and she reads the DM. I know she'll be waving this at me the next time I see her, as she already finds it hard to understand my DP's depression and constantly tells me he should count his blessings and sort himself out.

And JPS knows nothing about depression's history. In the 1930s it was a well-recognised condition amongst women, called 'Housewives' Neurosis'. Before that, it was described as Melancholia - and all through history, people have died of Melancholia.

I'm quite frankly, utterly digusted after reading this article.
She has no point to make and has only made the stigma and ignorance attached to this serious and soul destroying illness even more apparent.

oh gooood. jsp can soooo fark off.anyway isn't the article just a big plug for her books?

I couldn't even be bothered to scroll to the end of JSP's article, let alone actually read it.

JSP gets odder the older she gets. I used to find her interesting and quite amusing, and occassionally right. Not these days

Well I don't swear much and I'm pretty tolerant but my reaction here is

JSP. Off you Fuck!

"What pisses me off the most about this article is that when I was seriously depressed I became paranoid that people were all thinking the kind of nasty stuff about me that JSP says in her article about people with depression."

dizietsma that is exactly how I felt when I was shown the article at work on Saturday. I actually considered binning my medication when I got home because I am worried that is what my colleagues may be thinking of me. Started them again today ad I hope one day I may be able to stop them completely.

I have now moved to being really angry, people need to be encouraged to seek appropriate help for their symptoms not made to feel like they should hide which ime actually makes it worse.

You know, I have often wondered why she is invited on to question time so often. I've seen her on there quite a few times. The last QT I remember her on was right after one of the political debates and she kept on saying how the debates were not relevant to her as a woman because the party leaders were all middle-class men. What, so women aren't interested in economics, education or anything else being discussed because they are women? Is she saying that women can only relate to a concept if another woman is talking about it?

Sorry, I won't rant on, but she really drives me mad. Surely there are plenty of other women they could invite on to QT. I seem to be seeing her face over and over again on there.

Hijacked a bit there. Sorry.

JSP is being a , I agree.

But what enrages me is when people say glibly claim to be suffering from depression when they don't have a clue. As many of us here know, it costs women their jobs, their children, their lives.

To talk in fashion terms is just ridiculous though

FFS

She has written this in about 5 minutes - and has an editor even been near it? She doesn't have a point to make, she contradicts herself all over the shop, it's a poorly written advert for her two shit books

No research done at all

She knows fuck all about the reality of depression, or the spectrum of it, and as someone else said she is also totally ignorant of the history of the illness

What is she hoping to achieve here?

I think you have to have a modicum of emotional depth to suffer from depression

Janet Street Porter, being marginally les socially useful than a houseplant, need not concern herself

"What is she hoping to achieve here"

Some hot air on MN? All good publicity, I suppose

Oh no xstitch! This is exactly what I was worried would happen, god damn that woman! So glad you didn't ditch the meds because of her ill-informed prattling, am angry that she made you doubt it for even a second though.

What a load of ignorant clap-trap. And staggeringly poorly written and (as others have said) self-contradictory. I did wonder for a minute if someone else wrote it for her while she was off on a ramble or something.

"Every day, loads of women get divorced, lose a loved one, give birth and find out they have a terminal disease. But, miraculously, 90 per cent of us, don't get depressed about it, don't take special medication and don't whinge about 'black holes'. "

So if you are depressed after finding out you have a terminal disease then you are 'whinging'? And she is clearly including post-natal depression here, and that is beyond question a clinical condition.

Actually, to get a bit psycho-analytical about it, I would guess that she has been too scared to admit to herself her own depression and so she can't accept it in others either.

I had my suspicions about that too flimflam.