I wouldn't say he was clinically depressed though who knows, he didn't see a doctor. Certainly he was depressed, for two reasons at least both of which he shared with us. The belief system to which he had hewn his entire life had completely crumbled. What had been an absolute and passionate belief in God became an intense resentment for those who fed him a thing he came to regard as a dangerous fairy tale. He basically went from right-wing to left overnight, his radical anti-gay beliefs became radically pro-equality for gays. Virtually everything he believed was turned upside down. (This is why, so many years ago, I ceased trying to disabuse anyone of their religious faith, no matter how strong my opinion might be on that matter. I make exceptions only for dicks like Swoly after they have been exceptionally dickish.) And as a result of all that, he lost the one thing he did still believe in: his family. His wife left him because she couldn't live with an atheist as I recall and his mood became very black then, as would anyone's. A very normal thing. What wasn't so normal was his suicide. I imagine suicide is pretty rare among people that are not depressed, whether due to circumstance or clinical illness. In men that have what I have, bipolar 1, the thing that that dick Casey called a garden-variety mood disorder, suicide rates are astoundingly high. And LL may have had that as well. He was an extremely passionate and very sensitive dude in my admittedly superficial run-ins with him and in that way he reminded me very much of myself although we spent the first chapter of our BBS time together as bitter foes.
The part you quoted was a reasonable, if ignorant, answer to the OP. The part of his post you didn't quote was a big haha-fun-making of the mentally ill with a splash of 'get over it you babies.' I'm not surprised it didn't bother you. You like to do the very same thing.
It hurts to recount his downfall, and while everything you said is true, I don't think it was some kind of mental illness (or at least we don't have proof or knowledge of that). I think most people in his situation would've been severely depressed. In his case, I think it was an exceptionally unfortunate circumstance and/or series of events. I hope some kind of undiagnosed illness didn't contribute to it, because that means it could have been avoided or prevented, and it's awful to imagine that opportunity was missed.
well at least you provided solid evidence to the contrary of personal experience. And you totally missed on the underlying cause lol.
Your opinion is astoundingly incorrect and very dangerous if taken to heart. Much like Sactown's assertion that improving one's life situation will cure [clinical] depression although he is correct that getting out in the sun, exercise and trying your best to be social even when you don't want to are good treatments for it. I honestly don't know anyone that has lived a more exciting or more privileged life than I, apart from this one [serious] illness. Sactown's advice couldn't work for me because other than my sickness my life really could not be improved upon. Not bragging, making the point that life circumstances, though they may contribute to situational depression or clinical depression, are not a cure for clinical depression anymore than they would be for leukemia. I am usually not a fan of the phrases "in my opinion" or "well, what I think" as those should be implied always and don't need saying. In fact, when people say, "in YOUR opinion" I always just say, "Duh. Who else's opinion would I be stating?" In this case, I believe rather strongly that uninformed and dismissive attitudes toward a real and deadly illness deserve the qualifier, "I may be wrong, but..." Even though the OP did ask for opinions. BTW, OP: do not trust any opinions here including mine. Read, do research. You will find that, even with some of the backward-thinking opinions in this thread, this is a settled matter in the medical community and the debate over whether depression is a real disease ended many years ago. Now. "I may be wrong, but" I am not. In this at least. Do not doubt your cousin's illness; in fact, let him know that you know it is real (having done whatever research you need to do). One of the most difficult things about depression and other disorders of mood or emotion is the feeling that people are not taking you seriously. Let me quote here from William Styron's memoir on his own depression and let me tell you from mine that truer words were never spake: "In virtually any other serious sickness a patient who felt similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life support systems...His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned, and honorably attained. However, the sufferer of depression has no such option."
Excellent post, HP. Thanks for the kind words, but thanks far more for sharing your experience. The more people that come out of the closet on mental illness in themselves or in their families, the sooner various harmful stigmas will recede. Of course, there are those like Swoly or Casey who make fun, just as there are those that make fun of people with speech impediments or people in wheelchairs. Like Elliott Smith, one of the great depressive artists sang, "If it's your decision to be open about yourself, be careful or else." He warns there of creeps like the ones I mentioned above, but also of the "don't listen to him, he's crazy" stuff. Or the people that understand so little about mental health that it makes them unbearably uncomfortable. It's understandable (not the fun-making but the discomfort) as mentally ill people behave in ways that cause real problems for others and they can be very difficult to love. I still favor openness and I will stick to it because I know most sufferers of mental illness cannot afford to -- they would lose their jobs just to begin. I make my living as an artist so I am far less vulnerable in that way.
I have never made fun of mental illness. You have. I laughed that you have come back to your screaming self and then I was sad that you used your condition to shield yourself from any return fire.
Now, who knows if this type of disease existed back in the day but it's safe to say many people are mentally weak today than before.
It's actually not clear whether or not it's more common. (And, no biggie, but ill or sick would be preferable words to "weak") I'd highly recommend reading The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon, particularly the chapters on the history of depression and how it has been viewed and treated since we as a species began walking upright; the one of the politics of depression; and the one about the relationship between poverty and depression. It is a great read, quite a page turner despite the subject matter which may of course seem grey, and it was a finalist for The Pulitzer Prize. If anyone is interested in a reading list on the topic, I can provide a rather lengthy one. Since my friend died when I was 13 I have been interested in suicide and depression, more so when I learned it ran on both sides of my family tree, and more again when I was diagnosed by three different doctors with the same illness. Depression, suicide, mental illness are pretty much all I read about, all I write about (in fact I created two rock operas to do with the semi-famous manic-depressive Daniel Johnston and one on the suicide Dutch rock star Herman Brood, in cooperation with Frank Black), in all the music I love, in virtually all aspects of my life. I have been involved in the arts since I was a child and I have been surrounded by depression and suicide all lifelong. All of this I guess is just a defensive post (apart from the reading recommendation) in response to the notion that some anonymous jackass keeps suggesting that my understanding of the illness is from my own experience alone. I am about as well-educated on the subject as one can be without studying it in school.
Mentally weak? As in, people can't handle problems or hardship as well as they used to? Hmm... well, we do know that nowdays people are faced with less life threatening problems. Like, where am I going to sleep tonight, what am I going to eat, etc. So, maybe it's hard to have time or thought to devote to being "depressed" when your basic needs in life aren't met, or are in danger of not being met? Kind of like the hierarchy of needs. It may not be that people used to be "mentally tougher", but rather, they were faced with an entirely different set of problems that were more pressing and/or didn't have anything to do with "mental toughness". The capability to be depressed may have always been there, but the environment to allow it or encourage it was not. Kind of gives new meaning to "first world problem".
