My chronic anxiety and the price women have to pay today: SARAH VINE on the pressure females face to juggle motherhood and a job

Four years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic anxiety. I remember the moment very clearly: the kind doctor’s words, my surprised reaction followed by a relieved sense of things suddenly falling into place, coming into focus.

On the one hand I was grateful that I finally had an explanation for the set of symptoms I was experiencing; on the other I felt embarrassed and, if I’m honest, a little bit foolish.

Why am I telling you this? Because researchers at Cambridge University have just published a study — based on 48 different reports from around the world — showing that women (and, in particular, women under 35) are twice as likely to suffer from severe anxiety as men.

Researchers at Cambridge University have just published a study — based on 48 different reports from around the world — showing that women (and, in particular, women under 35) are twice as likely to suffer from severe anxiety as men

Reader, I am one of those women (not the ones under 35, worst luck, the other sort). Not depressed, you understand, nothing so serious.

No deep-rooted trauma, no black dog prowling the perimeters of my subconscious.

Just a permanent sense of underlying panic, a multifarious universe of nagging concerns that, periodically, coalesce into a black hole of worry into which I occasionally fall.

Clinical depression can, of course, be devastating and even fatal. But if you imagine it as the mental equivalent of catching flu, chronic anxiety is more like having a cold. Irritating, unpleasant (especially for others) — but not too debilitating. Not completely, anyway.

The reason I sought medical help was because I was experiencing some uncommon physical symptoms. Having always been a deep sleeper and a bit of a lazybones, I was finding myself waking early — around 5am — and then being unable to get back to sleep, often because my heart was racing.

I frequently felt unpleasantly dizzy, or nauseous. My muscles ached and I would sometimes get pins and needles in my hands.

More than that, though, my head was a constant whirr. I burst into tears at the oddest of things, and felt overwhelmed by the simplest of tasks. And I was tired, so tired in fact that I used to think it wouldn’t be all that bad if I went to sleep and never woke up again.

I would joke with my friends that I longed for a ‘non-fatal hospitalisation’, just to buy myself a few days of rest. As it happens, my wish came true: I got peritonitis, broke my arm badly and developed pneumonia.

My immune system was on the floor. A textbook case, as it turned out. And, it now seems, one of many.

What’s really fascinating is that this condition affects almost exclusively women in the West — Europe or North America. Elsewhere in the developing world, it is virtually unheard of.

You would think it would be the opposite. After all, what do women in the West really have to worry about? 

We suffer no immediate threat to our lives or those of our families; no famine, no pestilence or war, none of the terrible injustices so common in the developing world.

Surely this anxiety is just one of those invented first-world problems, such as running out of avocados or missing out on a place for your child at your chosen school?

Well, yes — and no. As the leader of this study, Olivia Remes of the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, puts it: ‘While in the past women were more likely to stay at home and be responsible for the family, they are now more likely to hold down a job while also bringing up children.’

The trouble is, women also have to look after the family and, increasingly, elderly or disabled relatives. As Ms Remes explains, ‘the burden of all these things falls on women’.

In other words, this anxiety — this constant stress that affects three million people in the UK alone — is all of our own making.

Because of the pressure on women to pursue our feminist heritage and get out to work, an intolerable strain is being placed on our psyches and turning out a generation of us who are frantic with worry.

In the under-35s, who feel this pressure even more than my generation did, the problem is especially acute. Is our sanity a fair price to pay for equality? Only time will tell.

KATE'S CHILD IS TOO YOUNG FOR A COVER GIRL 

Kate Moss's daughter, 13-year-old Lila Grace, has landed her first Vogue cover. Poor child.

As if the odds of living a half-normal life weren’t already massively stacked against her.

Her debut follows hot on the heels of Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia (14), Jude Law’s, Iris (15), Lily-Rose Depp (17) and, of course, Romeo Beckham (13 going on 27). 

Not only is it the worst kind of celebrity nepotism, it sends a corrosive message to other children that preening and pouting for the cameras is infinitely cooler than studying for maths GCSE.

Which it indubitably is — but only if your parents have enough cash in the bank to ensure you never need to enter gainful employment.

In my experience, such ‘lucky’ children invariably lead very unfulfilled and often miserable lives.

Kate Moss's daughter, 13-year-old Lila Grace, has landed her first Vogue cover (pictured)

 At first I had a lot of sympathy for Chelsea FC’s former doctor, Eva Carneiro, who yesterday reached a settlement with the club and its former manager. 

But when I read that she had first turned down an offer of £1.2 million to settle, I realised she’s just another attention-seeking gold-digger. 

That is a vast sum of money — more than enough to make reparation for any slight. Jose Mourinho can call me a ‘daughter of a whore’ any day of the week if it means that kind of cash.

John Major describes the Leave campaign as ‘squalid’. This coming from the man who had an affair with Edwina Currie. 

Revulsion aside, my main worry about putting human genes into pigs to create organs for transplant is this: at what point does the pig become sufficiently human to qualify for consideration under the Human Rights Act? 

Is there some measure for what percentage of an organ has to be of human origin before it becomes eligible? 

Might we one day see a pig at the European Court of Human Rights, demanding its right to keep its pancreas?

Nothing would surprise me.

A messy teen with nothing to wear? I'll drink to that!

If it's true that women spend six months of their lives deciding what to wear, surely 99 per cent of that time is racked up during the teenage years.

My daughter, who recently turned 13 (oh joy!), has seemingly become incapable of getting dressed without trying on every single item she owns.

Despite strong evidence to the contrary, she will then declare that she has ‘nothing to wear’, and stomp downstairs to the washing basket to reclaim yesterday’s ripped jeans.

As her mother, I am naturally keen to help in any way I can. And so, after a good deal of thought, I have concluded that her problem is clearly too much choice.

Now, every item of clothing I discover on the floor is sequestered, and in order to get anything back she has to donate 20p to my favourite charity (the wine fund).

Soon, she really will have nothing to wear — but it won’t bother me because I’ll be permanently sozzled.

According to experts, red wine can be preserved by keeping it in the fridge. Fascinating, I’m sure — although why on earth would anyone want to preserve it?

Not a shred of boorish Clarkson's wit

Intrigued to see what all the fuss was about, I tuned in to watch the second episode of Chris Evans’s Top Gear, which has already lost a third of its live TV audience.

Now I see the problem. The old Top Gear was a deliciously naughty, shamelessly sexist, cheerfully bigoted affair presented by three white middle-aged men for the benefit of other white middle-aged men.

In this respect it was a fine example of public service broadcasting, uncharacteristically catering for an increasingly marginalised section of the population.

The new Top Gear has the feel of a media schmooze-fest. One senses a focus group or two has been involved, and possibly a few North London dinners (pictured Top Gear presenter Chris Evans)

The new Top Gear, by contrast, has more the feel of a media schmooze-fest. One senses a focus group or two has been involved, and possibly a few North London dinners.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it — it’s a perfectly well-produced show. But those who routinely switched on to watch Jeremy Clarkson humiliate Richard Hammond are not the same people who enjoy watching pop stars such as Tinie Tempah and Sharleen Spiteri ponce around in expensive off-roaders.

Truth is, Clarkson, Hammond and James May were pretty rubbish presenters, but they had a certain blokeish charm. Yes, they sailed close to the wind; yes, their show was held together by insults — but it had an authenticity that endured season after season.

By contrast, everything about the new Top Gear, from the sets to the guests, is far too slick and professional.

Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc have nothing in common except their bulging contacts books — and neither has a shred of Clarkson’s wit, however irritating or offensive he may have been.

The old Top Gear was a lawless joyride. This is just a show about celebrities in cars.