Depression isn’t a choice but suicide is: my detailed response to the critics

http://themattwalshblog.com ^ | August 131, 2014 | Matt Walsh

[NKP_Vet]

Something happened yesterday.

It began with a post I wrote about depression and suicide called “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice.”

When I clicked “publish” on that piece, I felt confident. I was sad that it had to be written, and upset about the circumstances surrounding it, but sure that I was saying something that needed to be said; something truthful but uplifting, frank but compassionate. I actually found myself getting emotional as I wrote it. I’m not suicidal but I have demons of my own, so I submitted that post to the public, praying others would find the same solace in the promise of hope and the power of free will.

But then things got out of control. Rapidly.

My post on depression and suicide has been viewed 3 million times and received tens of thousands of comments (so many, in fact, that the Facebook commenting system on my blog crashed). My Twitter feed was flooded with responses, my email inbox overflowing, my Facebook page inundated. Dozens of bloggers have written responses. Several radio and TV shows have contacted me to ask about it. There has been an incredible amount of feedback, and the vast majority of it has been negative. Not just negative: often vicious, brutal, hateful. I have been told to kill myself more times in the past few hours than I can count. I’ve been called every name in the book and labeled everything from “human garbage” to a “worthless piece of sh*t” to a “disgrace” to a “monster” and a “psychopath.” I’ve been told that my kids should be ashamed and my wife should leave me. I’ve actually had more than one person “pray” that someone in my family commits suicide. Even my wife has been targeted and harassed.

[hinckley buzzard]

the problem with the man-in-the-street opinion such as Walsh's is that it ultimately says nothing very much. So suicide is a choice? All depends on your philosophy. Aside from spinal reflexes, you could say this equally about every thing ever done. If suicide is a choice, then to be logically consistent, everything is a choice. Circumstances mean nothing. If you believe that, however, you need to read the somewhat politically silly but psychologically important book The Lucifer Effect by Phil Zimbardo. or Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram. Then go on to the idea that all mental illness is a mere matter of choice, that paranoid schizophrenics just choose to be crazy. Yes, it was said, by the occasional "radical psychiatrist" back in the seventies.

On the other hand, if you think some behaviors are determined by external influences, then you have to explain why all behavior should not be understood this way.

Maybe it's better not to make pointless and tendentious judgments on people when there is nothing to be gained from the exercise. "Suicide is a choice." "Suicide is cowardly." Fine. Feel better now? Do you think someone will be dissuaded from killing himself out of fear that you might think him a selfish coward? Fat chance.

The only thing accomplished by this Walsh kid and others like him is to stir a pot that hardly needs stirring.

[heartwood]

You are blessed to have had that recovery, but it may not be the same for everyone.

I find that I have some choices as to how I will regard my life, as to whether I will engage in depressive thinking when I am just starting down that slope, but when I was in the pit my choices were not about about how I thought, but what I did, that is, not kill myself, get out of bed, show the best face for my children, seek help, take medication. And it was the medication that changed everything.

[TurkeyLurkey]

There are many physical and physiological factors that can cause depression.

[MaxMax]

Tell us how depression isn’t a choice?

[Phillyred]

I think what Tiger is saying is that it is usually the result of a long buildup of bad decisions- all choices. It doesn’t happen overnight.

[kdot]

“There are many physical and physiological factors that can cause depression.”

I agree. Clinical depression is real and challenging for all involved. That said, there are many who ruin their lives, make poor choices, and when there is no one left to blame, suddenly have “depression”. They use a real disease to escape personal responsibility. It happens.

[dadgum]

Seriously?

Ask the seven year old who, when asked what he wanted for his birthday, replied, one day without pain. Ask him why he is stupid enough to want to feel that way. Ask him why he knows what joy is, but somehow refuses to embrace it???

There is a huge misunderstanding regarding the nature of affective disorders. Unless you or a member of your immediate family suffers from clinical depression - you have never met anyone who did, nor did they share their story with you, because they were unable to leave their bed and unable to complete a rational argument.

There is a spectrum of affective disorder, ranging from chronic dysthymia (aka - “the blues”) all the way to clinical depression at the extreme of the other side.

Dysthymia is a pain in the ass, clinical depression is deadly.

Still waiting to hear the miracle cure....

[TigersEye]

What it is are our habitual thinking patterns. It does take a lifetime to establish them. It can likewise take a long time to undo them too but sometimes it just takes a minute.

[TigersEye]

The depression I went through for nearly 20 yrs was real Clinical depression.

[metmom]

As regards Williams, I have the same thing to say as I do with most celebrity burnout deaths. Why is the ending of his life so much more important than that of the poor smuck that lives in the suburbs?

I hear you. I didn't have the background you did, but your point is still the same.

What's with the big deal when it's a celebrity than some nameless, faceless person who the world has no use for?

They're both a tragedy.

[metmom]

the problem with the man-in-the-street opinion such as Walsh's is that it ultimately says nothing very much. So suicide is a choice? All depends on your philosophy. Aside from spinal reflexes, you could say this equally about every thing ever done. If suicide is a choice, then to be logically consistent, everything is a choice. Circumstances mean nothing.

Your premise and reasoning are flawed.

Our circumstances are not a choice. How we react to them IS.

And Williams CHOSE to take his own life.

Plenty of people are in worse situations than he was and they don't pull the plug on themselves.

[NKP_Vet]

Suicide runs in the family. Hemingway killed himself, like his father before him, and one of his Hemingway’s sisters and one brother also did away with themselves.

[dfwgator]

The Wrestling Von Erich family immediately comes to mind.

[informavoracious]

Why not say Type 1 diabetes is a choice? Or leukemia is a choice? A person in the throes of SEVERE clinical depression, bipolar, schizophrenia is not necessarily able to truly make a rational choice. People can avoid jail if they commit murder while mentally ill. They will be sent for treatment, but the law recognizes that culpability can be mitigated if someone is not in his right mind. Even the Catholic Church has softened toward allowing Christian burial to suicides, because a mortal sin requires full consent of the will. A brain not functioning properly may not be able to consent, just like you're not supposed to rape a drunk person because they cannot give consent. For anyone who has overcome clinical depression, bravo for you. Some cannot, and they may have tried far harder than you. It's not one size fits all.

As far as being selfish, does it occur to anyone that suicide may be the only "selfish" thing they have ever done? That they carried the family's burdens without support or gratitude? Maybe some survivors should feel damn guilty.

[Responsibility2nd]

Depression isn’t a choice but suicide is: my detailed response to the critics

Friday, August 15, 2014 12:36:06 PM · by NKP_Vet · 33 replies

http://themattwalshblog.com ^ | August 131, 2014 | Matt Walsh

Something happened yesterday. It began with a post I wrote about depression and suicide called “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice.” When I clicked “publish” on that piece, I felt confident. I was sad that it had to be written, and upset about the circumstances surrounding it, but sure that I was saying something that needed to be said; something truthful but uplifting, frank but compassionate. I actually found myself getting emotional as I wrote it. I’m not suicidal but I have demons of my own, so I submitted that post to the public,...

 

 

Walsh isn't kidding when he said his article was not well recived. Even here at FR... it created a firestorm....

 

Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice

Tuesday, August 12, 2014 3:28:29 PM · by NKP_Vet · 214 replies

http://themattwalshblog.com ^ | August 12, 2014 | Matt Walsh

I’m not normally one to write a blog post about a dead celebrity, but then I suppose there is no such thing. There are only living celebrities, not dead ones. In death, wealth and prestige decay and we are brought into a new reality, the only reality there is or ever was — one which, for much better or much worse, doesn’t care at all about our popularity or our money. The death of Robin Williams is significant not because he was famous, but because he was human, and not just because he left this world, but particularly because he...

 

[dfwgator]

Suicide is painless
it brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.

[MaxMax]

Because playing the Cheeeldren card wins every argument?
You are absolutely 100% wrong on your assessment. IMO.
And playing your Liberal dogma crap may fly for your echo
Chamber but not in my eyes wide open.

You talk like Children are adults and can make those choices.
This is where you are wrong and once a Child thinks that they're
going to get attention by acting out they almost always will
act out.

Are there legitimate cases? Maybe, but like the Homosexual issues
being pushed into our faces because "Everybody must know who's gay"
this one is no different.

There is a choice whether you want to admit it or not. The choice
with Cheeeedren are the parents and what they choose to tell their brats.
If you tell a kid anything they'll believe anything.