Posted on 08/15/2014 10:36:06 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Something happened yesterday.
It began with a post I wrote about depression and suicide called Robin Williams didnt 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. Im 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. Ive 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. Ive been told that my kids should be ashamed and my wife should leave me. Ive actually had more than one person pray that someone in my family commits suicide. Even my wife has been targeted and harassed.
(Excerpt) Read more at themattwalshblog.com ...
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.
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.
There are many physical and physiological factors that can cause depression.
Tell us how depression isn’t a choice?
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.
“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.
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....
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.
The depression I went through for nearly 20 yrs was real Clinical depression.
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.
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.
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.
The Wrestling Von Erich family immediately comes to mind.
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.
Suicide is painless
it brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.