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Monday 28 November 2011

Gary Speed RIP

I was about to write about my book and the sales figures and how I'm a little bit ahead of where I wanted to be, when I read the attached article by Matthew Linley, the brother of my former flatmate. It highlights how depression and depressive illnesses can afflict the strongest of us all. The inspiration for which is the shocking news yesterday of the death of Gary Speed, the manager of the Welsh football team and former professional footballer for Leeds, Everton, Newcastle, Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield United at the age of 42.

I was driving home with my uncle and my cousin from my sister's fiance's Stag weekend when I heard the news. It was a bulletin on Radio 1 and after searching through the internet I found out how it had happened. It appears Gary Speed took his own life, leaving behind two young sons and a wife. My thoughts, as are most of the country's are with them. The conversation in the car took a turn away from the frivolity of the weekend to our own understanding of depression. My uncle talked about a work colleague, while I talked about my understanding of the disease as a Psychology Lecturer. What I didn't mention was that for some years, I have suffered from depression.

Why didn't I talk about it? There is still such a stigma to suffering from mental illness. When the British boxer Frank Bruno sought medical help for his battle with depression, the vile rag that is The Sun ran the headline 'Bonkers Bruno Locked Up'. While I would dismiss using that publication to wipe my arse with, it raised an important social point. Depression is seen by many as a weakness, a flaw in one's character. I even used to think it myself, hiding from the truth. I saw myself as weak because of the way society portrayed people who suffered with the disease. There are over 6 million people in the UK receiving treatment for mental illness at the moment. Nearly 1 in 10, a greater percentage than are physically disabled and yet there is still a stigma attached to it. Maybe it's the traditional British 'stiff-upper lip' or maybe it's that not enough people understand the illness. But the real truth is, depression is prevalent in our society. It exists and yet sufferers are forced to believe that they are weak.  They are anything but.

People  who suffer from depression face a double battle; one with themselves trying to conquer the feelings of hopelessness and despair even during those moments that others would consider to be happy ones. And they face a social battle, of having to cope with public perceptions of others that somehow they are lesser individuals because of their affliction. As Dorothy Rowe once said, 'Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer'.
Here's a list of people with depression and ask yourself are these people worth any less than me because of what they suffer?

Leo Tolstoy, author
Charles Dickens, English author,
John Keats, poet,
Michelangelo, artist
Bette Midler, entertainer
Charles Schultz, cartoonist
Dick Clark, entertainer
Irving Berlin, composer
Rosemary Clooney, singer
Jimmy Piersall, baseball player. Boston Red Sox
Burgess Meredith, actor,
Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky, composer
Charlie Pride, singer
Sylvia Plath, poet and novelist.
Janet Jackson, singer
Patty Duke, actress,
Roseanne Barr, comedian
Marlon Brando, actor
Maurice Bernard, actor
Buzz Aldrin, astronaut
Margot Kidder, Actress
Jonathon Winters, comedian
Pat Conroy, author
Ernest Hemingway, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist,
Tennessee Williams, American playwright

And I didn't even mention Stephen Fry, Kurt Cobain, Abraham Lincoln, Isaac Newton, Van Gough, John Kirwan, Stan Collymore, Marcus Trescothick, Paul Gascoigne or many others.

Depression is not a weakness except in the eyes of the general public and it's about time that changed.

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