Ever heard of Aaron Swartz?

Did he have kids, or even a wife? I haven't read the links.

 

Sorry, you don't owe it to friends to be alive. As for parents, you could easily flip the argument around and say that they were selfish when they decided to bring someone in to the world just because they wanted to have a kid.

So again, unless you make a lifetime commitment to someone, or brought children into this world, the "selfish" part of it doesn't fly with me.

 

Just to be clear, I did not say it was selfless. I said it isn't selfish. Perhaps the difference is subtle, but it's not the same.

 

+1 imho

 

Am I the one who made the association? No.

Do many people here make that association? Yes.

Have you made any statements that make the association known? Yes.

Is this forum public? Yes.



I never said they control what you or I do. Where did you get that from? You also made an assumption about how I think. You seem to be doing that a lot in this thread.

 

I'm amazed that this thread went 4 pages without getting suicided to the dungeon...

 

Since the subject is suicide. On Monday, the Department of Defense reported that 349 active duty service members took their own lives in 2012 - the highest number since they began closely tracking suicides in 2001.

 

Steel, what is your take on the catalyst for this spike in suicides?
I honestly don't have a clue....do you have any thoughts?

 

That was from an email I got from IAVA. Their take on it is lack of adequate mental health care. My own take is depression and mental health problems in the USA are still stigmatized as weakness. Especially for soldiers which makes them avoid seeking help with their problem. Then when they or a civilian depressed individual offs themselves you see the sort of responses people have made in this thread.

 

not all physical issues/illnesses are easy to hide....most mental disorders are.

In the United States 46% of the population qualifies for a mental illness at some point or another during their lives. something so prevalent having the ability to be hidden is very disturbing.

 

So sayeth the Prosecuting Attorney:

"The prosecutors recognized that there was no evidence against Mr. Swartz indicating that he committed his acts for personal financial gain, and they recognized that his conduct – while a violation of the law – did not warrant the severe punishments authorized by Congress and called for by the Sentencing Guidelines in appropriate cases.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/carm...about-aaron-swartz-death-2013-1#ixzz2II7PY3yJ
​

 

If that's true, either people need to harden the fuck up or the qualifications for mental illness need to be loosened up.

 

Yeah that "harden the fuck up" mantra works so well for our Service men and women.

Found out today one of my prior co-workers committed suicide earlier this week. Too bad he didn't just harden the fuck up.

 

If that's what you got out of what I posted, then I don't know what to tell you.

I simply cannot believe that 50% of the population has a mental illness. The grading system is flawed then. Feel free to interpret that however you want and respond to whatever you thought I said instead of what I actually said.

I never denied the existence of mental illness. Not one bit.

 

While I understand your premise for "hardening the fuck up", I for one have experienced a personal loss of a family member that took me awhile to get past and function "normally" again. At the time, I remember a doc wanting to prescribe some mind altering substance, (read antidepressant), to which I said no.
It took some work to come out of that funk but "harden the fuck up" was not part of the solution.....mostly empathy worked best and to this day I still call the therapist who helped me through that time in my life....
If it was all so cut and dry we wouldn't need friends in our lives...all we'd have to do is man up....

 

Again, I'm not saying that real mental illness doesn't exist. 13 months ago, I lost one of my best friends to suicide. I get it. It's real.

I'm saying that I think that the definition of mental illness is so broad and our society has an all to eager approach to diagnosing and medicating things that aren't actually mental illnesses.