It doesn't take much digging to find that the caller has been depressed for some time - the family problem, the job problem, is a manifestation, not a cause, of the depression. There are millions of people like this. They may go to their physician for aches and pains, sleeplessness, lack of energy, and they get a useless prescription, medical procedure, or worse, they are dismissed as hypochondriacs. We need to do much more about educating the public about depression. Depression is a disease, but the word disease make us think about infectious diseases.
Depression is more like heart disease - it develops gradually over time.
Both are caused by a complex set of factors. Genetic and biochemical factors may determine a different level of stress for each of us that, once reached, puts us over the edge into depression. Childhood trauma, stress, and loss may bring us closer to the edge. I certainly don't think the observed increase in depression is due to media attention. But depression doesn't receive nearly the media attention it deserves.