Janet Street Porter Calls Depression a Trendy Middle Class Fad

[dizietsma]

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

She starts the article off with "This relatively new ailment appeared on my radar a couple of years ago, when I discovered that more and more women were claiming they suffered from 'stress'". I'm sorry, "relatively new ailment?!

Charitably, the thing that perhaps may be happening that JSP is picking up on is that depression is becoming something we can speak about more openly. If so, then that's good in that it would help address the stigma of depression. What she is taking it to mean is quite different.

A friend of mine has written a graphic novel about his experiences of depression both as a psychiatric nurse treating depression (as well as other mental illnesses) and as a sufferer of depression himself. It's very good and I recommend it in order to help address that stigma as mentioned above. He's an example of someone far from JSP's stereotype.

A different example that knocks down JSP's stereotype is Giles Andreae, who wrote very interestingly about his depression here. Both of those links show how very different actual depression is from feeling pretty sorry for yourself!

Gosh - I'm so glad that that's all sorted out. I must stop whinging about my parents dying!

God, she spouts some tripe, that woman. Strangely, I was only saying to my cousellor yesterday that I needed a slap and to be told to snap out of it (she did NOT agree) but it appears that the all knowing JSP knows better.

So many things wrong with that article.

1. housewives did used to be depressed. It has been a big problem for a long time. Hence the rise of valium and prozac. Before that it was opium and gin that were used to self medicate (and caused bigger problems).

2. She lumps anxiety, stress, low self esteem and depression all together whereas they are 3 different things that can be interlinked but aren't necessarily. For example I suffer from severe anxiety/panic, but am not necessarily depressed at the same time (I can be but it tends to be reasonably mild and clears up much quicker than the anxiety. But you can be depressed and that lead to anxiety. Or stress can be the cause of your depression.

3. Stress on sick note (ime) doesn't always mean someone is just suffering from stress. It can mean a range of mental illnesses that the dr feels the workplace doesn't necessarily need to know in detail. This is what happened to me.

Basically she has no idea about mental illness but on the flip side it is annoying when people complain they're depressed when what they mean is they are in a bad mood or slightly down - not that they have an illness which is terrifying and needs medical attention/supervision.

Good post Armadillo.

"The idea of feeling sorry for a bloke with low self-esteem is, frankly, risible. Let's just call it karmic revenge for all those years men have been in charge of everything."

Just one of many nasty, small-minded little barbs that I could have quoted from this horrid article.

It seems to be a plug for her rubbish "book", anyway, so I think we should ignore it.

'If you are a black South African woman growing up in a township.....you are probably not afflicted by depression'

Perhaps the honorable JSP would like to come to my two mental health clinics I run in the poorest parts of Nairobi, Kenya and observe her middle class fad in action.

Sure there are other extenuating factors affecting the poor Kenyan woman, attributing to their suffering, but they still suffer from clinical depression. As do their sons and daughters and often husbands.

It is entirely likely that the rate of depression in Kenya is far higher than that of the UK, if only we had the means to find out the figures, not to mention the resources to treat them.

this article was really awful in that [as someone has already mentioned] it might discourage people to get help because they think they should just 'pull themselves together'
my dad suffers from depression. my lovely, funny, caring dad, and it took him years to seek help because he was trying to convince himself to pull together and stop being a wuss

and i dont mind people saying they're depressed, because everyone gets depressed sometimes, its when people bandy about the word depression for sympathy/attention seeking. ive met a few people like this, and they anger me so much that they think that its acceptable to utilize a horrible condition in order to get attention.

Awful article.

It was being discussed on 'Loose Women' yesterday (nooo, I don't watch it, but it was on at the gym and I couldn't help sneaking a peek). Some very silly lady, whose name I don't know, attempted to solve the whole debate with a little anecdote about feeling tearful for a couple of days after having her baby. Her GP offered her ADs () and she says she took them home and looked and them and thought 'do you know what? I don't need these, I can get through this'.

I really have no idea what this anecdote was supposed to demonstrate, but if she was suggesting, as it seemed to me she was, that depression is simply about feeling a bit low or a bit tearful, then she is an absolute buffoon. Plus, it is bloody obvious that you're going to cry for (at least) a couple of days after giving birth, isn't it?

Winston Churchill suffered severe depression throughout his life. He called it his 'black dog'.

He was upper class.

Yet another piece of first rate journalism from a Z-lister sleb columnist and The Daily Hate. FFS.

Never really had an opinion on JSP before (have better things to spend my time thinking about) but am completely raging at this article . How dare she make such frivilous and cruel comments about something she obviously knows nothing about!

I don't know if this helps, but I have had a period of depression and found the answer, as in every sphere of life, is knowledge. Knowledge of others who have suffered, including many famous people. Winston Churchill had a name for it (which escapes me at the moment!) but his achievements were legendary. In fact it is a sign of a mature conciousness which can lead to great things. A period of contemplation is no bad thing. Look for a greater suffering in the world (not difficult to find!) to put yours into perspective. Mine led me into many areas that I have found immensely fulfilling and a greater strength of purpose that I would not have dreamed of at the time. So look about you, look forward and remember that you are certainly not alone and part of a unique community that is an important contribution to our humanity.

What rubbish, especially from JSP, as, let's face it JSP's mum must have been suffering from post natal depression for at least 46 years.

Or post natal embarassment.

pmsl at post-natal embarrassment

Involved, Churchill called it his Black Dog.

Am so pissed off at this article. I mean her comments about PCs in the 80s were bizarre, but this just takes the bloody biscuit. and also that some people honestly think like this.

I too was disgusted by that article, especially naming and putting a photo of Marian Keyes, who is ill.
What must she feel like, if she comes across it?

What a self-righteous nasty article.
For the record poverty stricken people do get depressed, it is just that that is only one of their many problems and so it gets less attention and understanding which actually makes it a whole lot worse to deal with.

My father's family were truly poor, in rural not having enough to eat, no shoes or proper clothes way. He isn't from this country so his poverty was the sort that we don't see in this country much any more. (note that doesn't mean we don't have genuinely poor people in the UK here nowadays)

And yet I know that at least two members of his family suffered from depression. It got very little sympathy though (a bit like from JSP). My dad describes his friends laughing at his cousin and calling him lazy as he "would stay in bed all day crying"
My dad's brother killed himself - I assume he might have been a bit depressed perhaps.

Obviously. people who lack the basic necessities of life might not have much time or sympathy for people who are depressed. That does not mean it doesn't exist.

The lack of sympathy for depression sufferers shown by my dad's family can be explained by the harsh conditions they lived in and ignorance. What is JSP's excuse?

Depression can be a fatal illness, it leads to suicide, for her to mock in this way has probably led to many sufferers feeling they are not entitled to talk about depression or seek help, yeah great move JSP, let's push it all back into the dark ages and pull ourselves together

I like JSP. Although she doesn't like me, and has described Mumsnet as something like "a handful of wittering bores masquerading under silly names" (was on TV, so can't quote precisely.)

Anyway, she says in the Mail: "These writers have got big houses, dogs, ponies, nice clothes and gadgets, and amazingly they feel really rubbish. Fantastic! It makes our problems seem so much more bearable." I rather agree. I've been more or less disabled by depression for a decade. It's taken me out of the restaurants where JSP & I both ate lunch, to an impoverished life in Nowheresville. The angsty, middle-class ladies of whom JSP speaks really do get up my nose!

Much of what she wrote was soundbites, but her principles look sound to me. She says: the way to lose your stress & depression is to strip the crap out of your life (wish I'd asked her advice back then!); despair passes and is not an illness; stress is having to deal with life-theatening problems, not finding a tear in the hem of your silk dress.

grace, sorry but that is not right. What you are saying is basically "pull yourself together if you're rich" right?
Depression, real depression is an illness and has nothing to do with income.

her article is utter rubbish.

Basically implies that if you have material possessions you should be happy and content Yes, because money is what really makes you happy...

Having been through a very severe form of depression which landed me up in hospital for 3 months I think I am well placed to say that depression really is not a choice.

No, nighby, I read her as criticising the flood of wealthy, comfortable women with lovely things and busy social lives, who capitalise on their "depression" to write articles and books about their suffering.

The bit I quoted is sarcastic, you can see that, can't you? No, it fucking doesn't make me feel better when somebody, who wouldn't know a real problem if it pulled up on their drive in a horse-drawn carriage, moans about their depression and claims to empathise with the rest of us.

If I thought "Pull yourself together if you're rich" worked, I wouldn't be where I am now! I was rich. Now I'm destitute, literally. It happened because of stress & depression. The stress & depression were caused by crap in my life. If I'd had the benefit of JSP's advice, I might have dumped the crap and not got poor.

People whose crap IS their life - the poor, the sick, the stuck-in-a-war-zone - can't dump it. So they deserve sympathy. Which they do not get from middle-class moaners.

I suppose I could express this more clearly again, but I really do have crap to deal with.