Hello frauen, I’d like to start with a small apology, cos I don’t think I explained enough before about the reason I mentioned the Thorpe Bay/grammar school kids who would have been many of Jack’s peers growing up. Daddy H worked a pretty normal job, for above average pay, and he seems to have made some wise investments, good on him. But his normal income when Jack lived at home would have been nowhere near what a lot of other local dads brought in, and it wouldn’t likely have bought designer labels and skiing trips and all that jazz. Even 20+ years ago there were mad amounts of money sloshing about and lots of people showing it off including via their kids. I’m inclined to speculate, not unfairly, that a possible reason Jack appears to simply not recognise her immense privilege might be because she genuinely felt underprivileged in comparison to some of her peer group growing up. Especially going to the grammar school she went to, with all the kids from sharp-elbowed Leigh-on-Sea and Chalkwell families who could afford 11+ tutoring and all that. Now, if she’d compared herself to our peers growing up in single parent households, in council housing around the town (there was still plenty of it in Shoebury and Southend when we grew up), and going to Shoeburyness or Prittlewell or Cecil Jones schools (all of which are quite a bit less shit now than they were back in the day; they were really shit then) maybe she’d be happier now because she’d realise how incredibly lucky she is. Who can say?! Certainly not me. I don’t think she spent enough time with us povvos for us to be worth a comparison. Anyway, that context was just an interesting thing for me to think about when trying to work out why Jack is so determined to play a Poor victim of society when she demonstrably isn’t; that was why I mentioned it.
After the last 24h I’m having second thoughts about OH. I’d partly based my assumption of his identity on her saying they’d known each other a long time. If it is ‘my’ suspected OH, then he would already have a reason to publicly keep her at arm’s length (sorry, I promise this would make sense if I could tell you who I think it is, but if I’m wrong then I think the guy I’d name would actually have a decent case for libel
no offence Jack) - but she does seem to be going off the deep end a bit so I don’t know if she does have anyone looking out for her.
Also - yes to previous posters - I personally agree that nobody should be getting into a relationship with someone who appears to be in such a bad place mentally as Jack, but I’ve had partners love me and care for me when I’ve been in shit situations before (even though I haven’t been compulsively lying about my dad shooting guns and all my AMAZING friends who send me gifts and the police tracking down my made up online troll, and maybe said partners wouldn’t have loved me if I had been doing all that nonsense), so I’ll sit on the fence if she does have an OH. It’ll all be consenting adults, it’s not my business to decide what they do with each other.
I did a quick mess around with entitledto.co.uk benefits calculator (we know her rent - or at least what she says she pays - and the CT band of the address is public info anyway, so it’s easy enough to work out) and it shows that on a PAYE salary of £30k and paying 6% into a pension, with a child living with her, she would be entitled to about £550-650 a month Universal Credit. Without the kid, on that salary, she’d still be entitled to about £25 a month. (£30k would be a, erm, healthy salary for working in Southend without any qualifications and minimal experience, so I’m being generous there.) So she must have been earning pretty ok for a while to not have been eligible for any benefits since 2014, as she now claims. (Or maybe that’s how long SB has been living with his dad. If that’s the case, my god she really did milk the single mum thing didn’t she?!)
I’ve got no sympathy whatsoever for her “it’s the ADHD and autism” nonsense because
I have formal diagnoses of both and yet I manage not to be a twat. I doubt Jack has formal diagnoses, partly because the last time I checked there was no adult ADHD service in Southend, so to be diagnosed with that as an adult she would have had to go private. That’s £1500 for assessment then £80 for each prescription and £300-odd for review appointments … nice if you can afford it, but of course our Poor little Jack only has £19 so she can’t possibly. There is an NHS adult Asperger’s clinic in Basildon but waiting lists are looooong and they cover teens too. Also she would totally have published a piece of rambling shit (yes I am a fine one to talk, but I’m not a professional writer so I’m allowed to be rambly) about the whole psych assessment process and how VALIDATING it was to finally be told she’s different (and having something she could potentially use as an excuse for any shitty behaviour) and oh my god why didn’t anyone ever NOTICE I was different and special. Seeing as we haven’t been subjected to that, I’m going with thinking there might not be a diagnosis.
Am also extremely sceptical about the RA claims - again, am sure we would have had photos of swollen red knuckles and ankles and knees and whatnot, as well as a comprehensive writeup of how gruelling it was getting an answer to why she was in so much paaaaiiiin and couldn’t cook. Also … like … come on frauen, this is Jack, and rheumatology and associated modalities at Southend Hospital are beyond awful (I know through parents
), so we would have had regular pieces on how totally broken the NHS is (live tweeted from the waiting rooms) if she was a pain or rheumatology patient. (N.B. The NHS is totally broken, and Jack would still not be a hero for pointing that out, especially when others are doing it better and from a more informed and less faux-gobshitey perspective.) Also there would have been a first-person diatribe about how awful the DWP’s process is for PIP claims - because it is, and Jack would be able to write all about that if she’d claimed PIP for her RA, which for any frauen who don’t know is usually a really disabling condition so it’s relatively easy to evidence disability in the PIP descriptors, as long as you’ve got the medical evidence to back you up of course. Being able to provide medical evidence is a bit of a sticking point if you haven’t got a condition.
I’ve digressed again, so back to the point I was getting round to making - I’m NOT saying that not having a formal diagnosis doesn’t mean she has ASD/ADHD (sorry for the clumsy wording there but I’m tired, aha am SO TIRED) … but I do think that if she ever was actually fully assessed by a consultant psychiatrist she would end up with various other diagnoses either instead of, or in addition to, ASD. The compulsive lying isn’t a normal ADHD or ASD trait, for starters; nor is the desperately seeking attention; or the having to pretend to be the elevenerife-est at everything.
This ridiculous police shit (!!!!!) reeks of histrionics, not that I believe her version of events in the slightest. And it’s very uncomfortable as someone who’s never had to be part of AA but has had a loved one who did, to see how she talks about AA. All of that stuff isn’t ASD or ADHD, that seems like some pathological fucking shit.
I do wish she’d get the help she needs. It IS sad watching someone humiliate themselves to this degree. And I think people who live their lives terminally online the way she seems to are sad generally. Ok, I do appreciate she’s being egged on by her naive (or ignorant) eager little squigs, and she’s clearly got herself into a mindset where they’re her Friends and anyone who dares question or even hint at criticisim of her is an Enemy (oh my god she IS kind of like a female Owen Jones isn’t she). But there’s got to be some small part of her that recognises what a douche she’s being with all the BS. Hasn’t there?!
We need a half decent journalist to save her from herself (and to save us from her of course, and to save the poor gullible squigs on lower incomes than she is yet donating money to her Patreon). Invite her on to your show, ostensibly to talk about the cost of living or food poverty or fuel poverty or whatever type of poverty is her main area of expertise this week, ask her a few softball questions THEN start booting the real shit at her: “Jack, some people have pointed out there are some inconsistencies in your backstory, can you explain [lists exact examples of BS]?”, “Jack, did your dad really fire a whacking great gun in a quiet residential street the other weekend?” “Jack, how much income do you receive through your Patreon each month?” that kind of thing. She’d have no choice but to go away and get her act together, maybe even learn some useful skills before coming back into the public eye.
Go on Jack, you could get better at being Jack Monroe. You’ve created this whole persona - why are you content with her being an easily called out bullshitter with what appears from the outside to be quite the personality disorder? Why don’t you want her to actually be smart and credible?
(ps if you’d told me even six weeks ago, never mind ten years ago, that I would be posting on a message board about Jack Monroe I would have thought you were fucking bonkers, yet here I am, it’s making me laugh)
