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From: judy@ism780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf)
Message-ID: <139@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Apr-84 00:03:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ism780.139
Posted: Fri Apr 20 00:03:53 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Apr-84 08:32:18 EST
Lines: 37

#R:hpfclk:-730065608:ism780:18100001:177600:1791
ism780!judy    Apr 18 15:21:00 1984

Mike,

Please be careful.  You are falling into the trap of assuming everyone
is like you.  You cannot generalized depression by what makes you, an
obviously intelligent and "sane" person, mildly depressed for a day.

Clinical depression is a mental illness.  It is fairly mild as mental
illnesses go (consider schizophrenia).  However, there are some very
severe, fatal cases of it.  Consider for a moment a child.  At age one
her father abandons her.  Her mother goes crazy and tries to kill both
the child and herself.  The child is reared in a religous household in
which all medical assistance is denied.  In response to a broken arm
she is told it is just her imagination.  She
is tortured and raped by an older male relative.

Now, do you seriously think that if she felt better about her work and like
more of a productive member of society she would feel all better.  WRONG!
This kind of depression has deep and serious roots.  This person is in
deep pain, internally bleeding in an emotional sense.  And there is a time,
perhaps triggered by an outside event, when the pain is too much.  You would
not call the cancer patient selfish for ending her life rather than live
for two years in unbearable pain.  How DARE you so cavalierly dismiss this
womans pain by calling her wish selfish!

Fortunately, there is professional help for people with such mental illnesses
as cronic depression, manic depression, etc.  And the prognosis is high.
But the cost is also high.  It requires feeling all that pain and anger and
humiliation and then learning to live daily with the memories and the pain.

Compasion is the answer to this problem.  Quit blaming and start
understanding.  Imagine, for 30 seconds, what life would feel like as
another human being.  Love, don't judge.

Judy Leedom