Something to start the week on a downer.

No, not the foreign minister.

Here is a piece about depression, which is farily interesting. It is nothing new, being about the stigma that is still held against depressives, but always worth hearing again. As an on-again, off-again depressive myself, I sympathise and relate.

The link to the article on the news.com.au contains the stock-bog phrase "Ms Blah has everything to live for, but contemplates ending it all", which annoys me no end, especially when I am depressed. I find the thing that depresses me the MOST is the perceived pressure from society for me to live up to some kind of "potential". That to be educated, well-fed, relatively well off (sometimes, I have been flat broke and destitute at times), with some friends and a supportive family somehow excuses me from suffering and depression. That if I want to be depressed I should have been raped or abused and live in the gutter. I agree with that, but depression doesn't come from hardship, it comes of its own accord and it only contributes to the depression if you have no reason for it. Of course, the pressure comes from myself, but the cycle of being depressed because I am depressed because I shouldn't be depressed is a downward one.

I have often said the person who complains the least in the world is the poor bastard locked up in some torture rampant third world prison somewhere. The person who complains the most has everything.

The cure for my depression has been to shift the way I look at the world, to take the pressure off myself. Basically, I try to put all experience, good and bad, on a level playing field. Being severely depressed, suicidal and broke for many months but surviving it AND learning from it strengthened me and the experience is equal in value in my mind as any period of happiness and prosperity.