Posts Tagged ‘depression’
Michelle Obama’s ‘low-level depression’ is not a mental illness; Donald Trump appears unwell
Feted and minted former US First Lady Michelle Obama is worried. The BBC tunes into her podcast and hears her say: “I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worrying about something or there’s a heaviness.” The older we get the less well we sleep. “These are not, they are not fulfilling times, spiritually,” says Mrs Obama. “I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression.” Depression is a disease. It’s not to be confused with feeling low or blue. It comes from somewhere other, an invasion that kills your sense of reason and infects your being with a “lie of the mind”.
Rod Dreher likened his depression to walking around the house “as if I were wearing a heavy wool blanket soaked in cold water almost all the time.”
Depression kills. So why is Michelle Obama a little bit depressed? She explains: “Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”
Pathologising the Trump presidency and being woke – literally awake – might be a step beyond. And you don’t need therapy to cure yourself of Trump-phobia – you need better politics and ideas.
And if we are going to talk about mental illness, can we talk about Donald Trump? The man does not seem to be well.
Posted: 6th, August 2020 | In: Celebrities, News, Politicians | Comment
REM, Depression And Genius: The Twenty-four Hour Mind
In Rosalind D. Cartwright’s The Twenty-four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives, she turns to a link between REM sleep and depression:
The more severe the depression, the earlier the first REM begins. Sometimes it starts as early as 45 minutes into sleep. That means these sleepers’ first cycle of NREM sleep amounts to about half the usual length of time. This early REM displaces the initial deep sleep, which is not fully recovered later in the night. This displacement of the first deep sleep is accompanied by an absence of the usual large outflow of growth hormone. The timing of the greatest release of human growth hormone (HGH) is in the first deep sleep cycle. The depressed have very little SWS [slow-wave sleep, Stages 3 and 4 of the sleep cycle] and no big pulse of HGH; and in addition to growth, HGH is related to physical repair. If we do not get enough deep sleep, our bodies take longer to heal and grow. The absence of the large spurt of HGH during the first deep sleep continues in many depressed patients even when they are no longer depressed (in remission).
The first REM sleep period not only begins too early in the night in people who are clinically depressed, it is also often abnormally long. Instead of the usual 10 minutes or so, this REM may last twice that. The eye movements too are abnormal — either too sparse or too dense. In fact, they are sometimes so frequent that they are called eye movement storms.
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Posted: 20th, November 2014 | In: Technology | Comment
Robin Williams: Mail, Express, Metro, Mirror And Sun Turn Killer Depression Into A Sensational Suicide
Media outside the home of Robin Williams in the town of Tiburon, California where the actor/comedian was found dead
SO. How have the British Press reacted to the news that Robin Williams died? At first they lamented the passing of a favourite entertianer. Then Peter Samson told Sun readers that Williams had taken his own life. He stated this with the coroners court was stil investigating.
Mind, the mental health charity providing “advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem – We campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding” – issued a media guide:
Robin Williams: Media briefing for journalists
As this story unfolds and more details are revealed about the circumstances surrounding Robin Williams’ death, we are issuing a brief reminder about guidance on media reporting around suicide and in particular a reminder that reporting specific details about the method a person uses can be very triggering for others experiencing suicidal thoughts. We urge you to avoid excessive detail about method of suicide and to report responsibly and sensitively. Evidence shows that copycat suicides can occur as a result of extensive media coverage – please avoid explicit details and sensationalist reporting.
The Samartians has more advice:
Samaritans recommends:
Avoid giving too much detail. Care should be taken when giving any detail of a suicide method. While saying someone hanged themselves or took an overdose is acceptable, detail about the type of ligature or type and quantity of tablets used is not…
Avoid any mention of the method in headlines as this inadvertently promotes and perpetuates common methods of suicide…
Vulnerable individuals may identify with a person who has died, or with the circumstances in which a person took their own life. For example, combining references to life circumstances, say a debt problem or job loss, and descriptions of an easy-to-copy suicide method in the same report, could put at greater risk people who are vulnerable as a result of financial stress.
Never say a method is quick, easy, painless or certain to result in death. Try to avoid portraying anything that is immediate or easy to imitate – especially where the ingredients or tools involved are readily available.Avoid over-simplification. Approximately 90 per cent of people who die by suicide have a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health problem at the time of death. Over-simplification of the causes or perceived ‘triggers’ for a suicide can be misleading and is unlikely to reflect accurately the complexity of suicide. For example, avoid the suggestion that a single incident, such as loss of a job, relationship breakdown or bereavement, was the cause.
Some suicides attract intense media scrutiny. However, where possible, refrain from positioning a story too prominently, for example on a front page or as a lead bulletin, as this may unduly influence vulnerable people…
Take extra care with the selection and placement of imagery linked to a report about suicide. For example, question if a large or prominently placed picture of the person who has died is necessary.
And the Press respsonded thus:
Depression is an illness. It can be a killer. What other illness would get this revolting treatment?
Posted: 13th, August 2014 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment (1)
The Black Dog of Depression: The WHO Takes Up Where Churchill And Johnson Left Off
THE Black Dog Dog of depression is hideous. Winston Churchill used the phrase black dog to describe his own moods.
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Top Gun director falls to his death in thoroughly awful suicide
TOP GUN director Tony Scott, younger brother of Ridley, has committed suicide after falling to his death from a bridge in Los Angeles.
Scott’s death has sent Hollywood into instant grieving, with celebrities taking to twitter to offer sympathies and pay tribute. The director was responsible for some of the most fun films in cinema, such as Enemy of the State, Days Of Thunder, True Romance and Beverly Hills Cop II. Ron Howard went for a simple: “No more Tony Scott movies. Tragic day.” Martha Plimpton meanwhile said: “So very, very sorry to hear of the death of Tony Scott. A terrible, terrible loss of a truly talented, brilliant man.”
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Posted: 20th, August 2012 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Male Neurotic Sexists Wave Goodbye To The Daily Mail’s Allison Pearson
ALLISON Pearson has left the Daily Mail. Madame Arcati puicks up a doily wipes away the tears:
She’s left the Daily Mail, as expected. So I read her piece on her depression, an implied reason for her departure. As you’d expect she sexes up her condition by locating it on a fashion wave band: she’s one of the Blues Sisters. She’s Sandwich Woman. More labels that may yet hook a gullible editor into a zeitgeist tsunami of publishing cash.
Because Allison is a newspaper columnist she has nothing useful to say about either depression or her inner life. A Thurderbirds puppet lulled into a Derren Brown hypnotic trance would reveal something at least as against Allison’s spirit void.
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Posted: 30th, April 2010 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
The A To Z Of Celebrity Illnesses
READING this week’s OK! is to venture into the A to Z of Celebrity Diseases.
Victoria Beckham would like OK! readers to know: “I HATE LOOKING AT MYSELF IN THE MIRROR.”
For such reasons does Her Poshness appear in magazines and thereby gets to see herself in glossy print.
Natasha Hamilton, a singer, tells us about “MY DEVASTATING MISCARRIAGE”. Although she pulled herself together to watch Disney’s On Ice Finding Nemo, which the kids “loved”.
And Girl Aloud singer Nadine Coyle tells us:
“I kept getting ill, coming out in cold sores with the stress. Then a found a lump in my breast.”
And? And it wasn’t cancer. But it could have been. It could have been a piece of gristle. But it could have been cancer. And Nemo could have died.
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Posted: 1st, October 2008 | In: Celebrities, OK! | Comment (1)
