RANT WARNING: I already knew what a scumbag conservative-Christian blogger Matt Walsh was, but this is even low for him. His piece piece titled Robin Williams Didnt Die From A Disease, He Died From His Choice, is an example of everything that is wrong with how we view depression in this country. The amount of ignorance displayed is sickening. I was fuming after I read his asinine take on suicide and depression. The outside view, especially from those not afflicted, is that suicide is a conscious and selfish choice. This is naive and ignorant. Some think that suicide is selfish copout by weak people that dont take into account how their loved ones will feel is an attitude that couldnt be further from the truth. If youve ever experienced chronic depression you know how much of a struggle it is everyday. Sometimes youre happy. Sometimes youre sad. Sometimes youre optimistic. Sometimes you feel completely hopeless and that youll never be happy. For many, too many, the bad days are much more severe and much more frequent. Like with any severe disease, its easy and understandable to want and try to make the pain dissolve. Many also dont see their suicide as selfish, they see it as selfless. They feel as if they are a burden on everyone, the source of their loved ones issues, and by ending their life it will make things better in the long run. We have empathy for others suffering from debilitating and near-hopeless diseases, why isnt that the case with depression? Dont kid yourself either, depression is very debilitating. I experienced extremely hopeless days when I was younger and battling cancer. I was forced to contemplate and accept death at age 12 and years after battling my cancer. I had days when I thought I was never going to get better and that I was a physical, emotional, and financial my burden to my mother and family. I thought sometimes that if I didnt make it, maybe that wouldnt be so bad in the long run. I have felt this hopelessness and burdensome feeling long after the last traces of cancer had left me. Why? I suffer from depression and PTSD. Ive ever been suicidal, but I completely understand how people could get to that point. The other thing in that piece that infuriated me was the attempt to blame depression on your level of religiosity. It is deplorable and an example of how flawed our approach to health matters such as addiction, mental health, reproductive health, and many other issues where religion is used as a cure-all for very real, very serious, and very complex health problems. It is tantamount to putting a wet washcloth on a cancer patient. It helps with comfortability but does nothing to treat the disease whatsoever. The attitude displayed by this moron and by many, too many, contributes to the pulling of triggers and tying of nooses itself. It would be different if this ignorance wasnt so willful and readily available. It would be different if we still lived in a time when bloodletting was an acceptable treatment to drain the evil and ailments out. We arent. Not today. It seems, however, that we as a society carry this vestigial tail from the dark ages. It is behind us, no longer useful, but glaringly visible when tragedies like this happen. Dark-age ignorance cannot be accepted nor tolerated any longer. Those of us that suffer from depression cant afford anymore darkness.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:54:46 +0000
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