I don't know about anyone else but I am getting a little exasperated at the growing number of sports people that claim to have suffered from depression during their careers - Freddie Flintoff has now joined the list.
There is no doubt at all that depression is an extremely serious illness and my heart goes out to genuine sufferers but I think people have to be very careful about self-diagnosing this sort of thing, principally because it trivialises a very serious medical condition.
In Flintoff's case in Australia, I think it was probably more of a case of him being thoroughly dejected and disillusioned about being battered on the field by the Aussies rather than being in a genuinely depressed state.
My view is that there is a big difference between being 'down' because of having suffered a 5-0 loss or whatever - which can be swiftly turned around if you win your next game - and being genuinely depressed where the result of the game or your performance will have no effect whatsoever on your mood because you are actually genuinely ill.
I could be wrong on this and I suppose others will disagree with me but I think there is an important difference between genuine depression and the more temporary disillusionment and dejection that sportspeople can go through from time to time.
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Bit strong Leroy, old bean.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
I am certainly not trivialising depression or saying that anybody is immune from suffering from it.
All I am saying is that Flintoff is the latest in a growing list of high profile sportspeople to claim to have suffered from ‘depression’ during their career when in clinical terms that would be a completely incorrect diagnosis.
I am the last person on earth who would ever say “pull yourself together” or any of that Neanderthal nonsense or claim that just because someone is rich and successful that they can’t or should not be depressed, I am fully appreciative of the dangers of the condition.
However, there does genuinely seem to be a growing trend for sportspeople to claim they are suffering from ‘depression’ when, in fact, that is far from the case and they are actually suffering from something completely different.
There have been quite a number of cases of this here in Oz, most notably with a Rugby League player called here who claims that his incessant drinking and off-field atrocities are caused by ‘depression’ when he has admitted that he has never actually been seen by a medical practitioner.
I have not ‘made my mind up’ about Flintoff one way or the other – and am not remotely qualified to do so – but what is not in question is that there is clearly a growing trend for athletes and others in the public eye to blame their troubles on ‘depression’ when in many cases they have never been diagnosed and just assume because they have had a low period that they are actually clinically depressed.
I have known a few people with proper clinical depression and have read quite widely on the subject, it is not something I take lightly at all and, indeed, it is because of the serious nature of the subject that I find it objectionable that people erroneously claim to have suffered from proper depression when they have had nothing of the sort.
Proper depression and indeed the wider field of mental health in general does need wider publicity and far greater public understanding but I am not sure that is best achieved by public figures self-diagnosing themselves with depression via the media.
Indeed, this ‘celebritisation’ of depression is likely to lead to far greater problems in the longer run because it creates the impression that you can ‘get over’ depression in a couple of weeks when the reality is that it is not that simple because it is a genuine lifelong condition that needs constant management.
I was actually talking about this with one of my wife’s in-laws over Christmas, the person in question is a GP over in WA and she said that over the last couple of years she has seen a lot more patients (especially younger people) asking to be referred to a specialist or given medication because they are suffering from depression when in many cases their actual condition does not really support their claims in the proper meaning of the term.
I would have thought that sportmen and women were actually prime candidates for depression. For pro atheletes, admitting to depression is a tough ask given that they inhabit a world where bravado, success and celebrity brings money,fame and identitiy. Given that our attitides to mental health still lurk somewhere in the dark ages, it becomes almost impossible for high flying athletes/ sportpersons to recognise and then admit to what many still perceive as a weakness.
If there is a bandwagon effect, and I stress the word 'if'', then maybe it will at least have the benefit of directing the public gaze onto a scandalously underfunded area of public health where there is much unseen misery and a great deal of ignorance.
"I'm depressed."
Your second paragraph is a possibility, or it could go the other way and trigger profound cynicism over the issue because numerous footballers/reality TV stars are claiming to suffer from depression and are then ‘fine’ again within a couple of weeks because, of course, they were not actually depressed (in the full medical sense of the word) at all.
I think there is a real danger that a “me too” culture of depression could, in fact, decrease compassion of understanding for people with very real mental health problems.
There are plenty of examples of sports people with very real mental problems – most obviously dear old ‘Banger’ Trescothick whose problems cost him his international career – but there are some recent example where people are claiming depression on spurious grounds.
Depression can, of course, have varying degrees but for a GP/Specialist to actually diagnose depression your symptoms usually have to be prolonged and reasonably pronounced, you can’t just turn up and announce you are depressed because you lost your last game 5-0 and be diagnosed immediately, it is a far more complex process than that.
I agree that it could be argued that sportspeople are quite prone to depression because of the knife edge nature of their work, the classic win/lose tension, but by the same token they also get to experience incredible highs, the likes of which non-sportspeople simply never get, its a complex question.
Did you bother reading anything above here? I am not passing comment on whether or not he was actually clinically depressed – and have said so at length if you had actually read it.
The wider point is that there is world of difference between the professional lows experienced by most sportspeople and genuinely suffering from fully diagnosed depression, you don’t just ‘get over’ being clinically depressed as anyone with the first clue about it would well know.
Someone who has been diagnosed with depression needs regular supervision and treatment, the problem needs to be monitored continuously because it never really goes away.Your first paragraph is exactly what I am – albeit clumsily – trying to say.
My big fear about so many people in public life erroneously claiming to be depressed or have experienced depression is that it actually has the potential to trivialise a really serious issue which might outweigh the benefits of bringing the issue more into the public eye.
I think most people are aware of depression as an illness but I think that there is still a misunderstanding about how serious and far-reaching it is and how it can’t be cured with a jolly-up to Margate or whatever but needs constant monitoring to keep it at bay.
A bloke I used to play cricket with suffered from depression (diagnosed fully) and his treatment was really built around making sure he recognised the “triggers” which might spark his illness into life and making sure that he avoided those triggers, one of which in his case was excessive alcohol, he found that if he drank too much it could really send him into a depressed state.
As a result he is these days only on the Light Beers which has probably cost the Brisbane licensed trade a small fortune!“Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
Listening to some of those, who on the face of it had everything, talk about how it effected them and how they coped (or not) might change the views of some of the posters on this thread.
I applaud anyone who admits to depression and worry about threads like this that, whether intending to or not stop people from admitting to the problem.