Coming Out Of The Dark

Depression? It’s just the new trendy illness! An article from U.K. Daily Mail’s columnist Janet Street Porter has left me in complete shock at its uneducated and ignorant opinions on depression  This type of irresponsible journalism could potentially set the mental health anti-stigma movement back a few decades and lead sufferers to feel worse than they already do.

A detailed response was required, Street-Porter quotes are in bold.

“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’.” A new ailment? Depression, previously known as melancholia, was described as a distinct disease with particular mental and physical symptoms in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. (1)

Street-Porter compares the recent “trend” of depression to the latest handbag as a must-have accessory, stating that sufferers are “middle class, highly successful and – most important of all – comfortably off” and if you are poor or working class you probably aren’t afflicted by depression.

There are people in all walks of life suffering from depression and other mental illnesses, illness does not discriminate.  Often people who are well off realize they are dealing with an actual mental illness when they discover money didn’t buy happiness.  Has this writer not noticed the increase of suicides in the news of people who recently lost their jobs and have been hit with the financial crisis?

“I find something very slightly repellent about this recent epidemic of middle-class breast-beating…Why sufferers feel empty and suicidal. Get a grip, girls!” Get a grip? That is one of the many flippant expressions those uneducated on depression use that cause sufferers to feel even worse and ashamed that they can’t snap out of it that easy.  (2)

Street-Porter does sympathize with those that have lost loved ones as she herself lost a sister and a close friend, however, she then says “But my life goes on, I haven’t retreated under the duvet with a bottle of pills.” Well, then, it turns out the writer is lucky she doesn’t have a mental illness.  She doesn’t seem to get that healthy minds can have horrible things happen to them and come out of it ok and life does go on, while those with unhealthy minds can have a complete breakdown over what she may call no big deal.

The article goes on to plug Street-Porter’s two books as a way of proving she is credible in what she is saying as both have the “Get a grip, take control of your life” theme.  Next up she tackles the notion of stress saying it simply did not exist a few years ago.  Huh?  The only two exceptions the writer makes is “post-traumatic stress syndrome – the mental trauma caused by war – or post-natal depression” as recognized mental conditions.  Even that I have to point out PTSD is not only caused by war and again people of all walks of life suffer from it.

“I truly believe that illnesses go in and out of fashion – at the moment, trendy women are allegedly suffering from depression” She goes on to say that ten years ago the trend was backache and that less people claim to suffer from it now.  I’d like to take this opportunity to admit that I have back, shoulder and neck pain due to stress.  Oh wait I forgot stress is not a real thing, “stress has become, in our work-orientated society, almost a badge of honour.” I’d like to give that badge back to whoever gave it to me.

“Best-selling misery memoirs abound – we just love reading about someone else’s misfortune. These writers have got big houses, dogs, ponies, nice clothes and gadgets, and amazingly they feel really rubbish.”

Celebrities coming out with memoirs describing their own personal experiences with mental illness are helping stomp the stigma associated with the disease and making it more socially acceptable to speak about it.  Most are genuinely taking the risk of speaking out to help others not feel so alone with their illness. A few like Joe Pantoliano and Glenn Close have started organizations to raise awareness and money for the cause to stomp the stigma of mental illness.

No Kidding, Me Too! Is an organization and documentary film by Joe Pantoliano, whose purpose is to remove the stigma attached to brain dis-ease through education and the breaking down of societal barriers. He has enlisted a long list of celebrities to be on the board and join the cause including Harrison Ford, Robert Downey, Jr., Marcia Gay Harden, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Williams, Dana Delany and Jeff Bridges. (3)

Bring Change 2 Mind is a national anti-stigma campaign encouraging people to speak out about mental illness. “Change a Mind, Change a Life” is their mantra.  BringChange2Mind.org is a not-for-profit organization created by Glenn Close, the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), Fountain House, and Garen and Shari Staglin of IMHRO (International Mental Health Research Organization). (4)

“Depression? It’s just the new trendy illness!” claims  “My mum’s generation didn’t suffer from stress or depression.” Really? If the writer did any research at all she would have discovered that in the mid-20^th century, researchers theorized that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain. (5) If a whole generation didn’t suffer from stress or depression that certainly should have been studied by the mental health experts.

“The current load of depressives have cleaners, attractive kids at all the best schools, washing machines and spin-dryers, and enough money to buy readymade swanky cup cakes.” Wow, I wish I had a cleaner, a washer and dryer and enough money to buy swanky cup cakes!  It wouldn’t cure my depression, but it may take away a few of life’s stresses and with money comes more access to professional treatment.

The article returns to the ignorant claim that depression is only being suffered by the middle and higher class.  “There are millions of women who work in ordinary jobs, who don’t have successful husbands, who live in council flats and who have parents who are struggling. But they somehow manage to cope magnificently.” Again, I point out that they like the writer are the lucky one’s that don’t suffer a mental illness.

Street-Porter doesn’t stop at discriminating by class system; she dismisses men with depression as well. “Now, men are jumping on the depression bandwagon.”

This article really took me a long time to get through as I had to keep re-reading each paragraph to confirm what I had just read in shock.  When I didn’t think she could possibly say anything more offensive and damaging, she proved me wrong.

“They’re even dredging up dodgy statistics to prove that depression – assuming there is such a thing – is on the increase. Apparently, 11.2 per cent of women are experiencing it at any one time.”

Dodgy statistics?  Street-Porter doesn’t even bother to state the source of the one statistic she included. The mental health professionals don’t pull statistics out of thin air; they are results of extensive research studies.  (6)

“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’. That’s life in the real world.”

Maybe instead of asking a few friends if they have ever had depression, Street-Porter could have interviewed some of those middle class women claiming depression that she considers to be exaggerating.  She may have learned one had a mother who was institutionalized; another may have suffered abuse as a child, still another may admit their wealth is what is exaggerated and that her family is in a financial crisis.  The fourth might reveal that Street-Porter is right, her life is seemingly perfect in every way, yet she struggles to get out of bed everyday and lives in a fog of depression so thick that even brushing her teeth feels like the tooth brush must weight 20 lbs.  Street-Porter needs a serious dose of reality, mental health education and apparently journalism education as well.

1. History of Depression, Wikipedia
2. The 99 worst things to say to someone who is depressed
3. No Kidding?!! Me. Too!
4. Bring Change To Mind
5. American Journal of Psychiatry
6. Mental Health Stats

Tags: bi-polar, depression, Depression? It's just the new trendy illness!, Janet Street Porter, Joe Pantoliano, joey pants, journalism, memoir, mental illness, nkm2, organization, ptsd, trauma, U.K. Daily Mail

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 15th, 2010 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Mental Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.