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Old 02-12-2009, 12:55 PM  
Libertine
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Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 17,860
Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesK View Post
Sorry to hear that Reddd, must've been tough.

I honestly didn't know much about suicide being related to clinical depression and things going out of control like that, that's why I always assumed it being a cowardly thing and an easy way out. Guess I learned something new today.
About 60% of suicides are the result of clinical depression, and the majority of the rest result from other mental disorders (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc) or are committed under the influence of drugs.

There are very few people without mental disorders who just decide to kill themselves only because of specific circumstances they're in at a given time. A mentally healthy person won't just decide that the problems he's having are too big, and kill himself as an "easy way out".

And it should be obvious, really... a rational person, given the choice between any random problem "X" and death, would choose problem X instead of death. For most of us, whatever the situation, it's a no-brainer.

So suicide results from some fundamentally warped thinking. Not from cowardice, but from a complete outlook on life which has been fundamentally altered or even shaped entirely by a mental disorder.

A good example is color. Someone suffering from clinical depression literally sees less color than a mentally healthy person. And similar things go for things like image of the self, body image, expectations of the future, etc.

People living with severe depression literally experience a fundamentally different world from the one the rest of us experience. That's why they don't respond to the typical attempts to "cheer them up" friends and family will provide - what's being said directly conflicts with what they can see with their own eyes.
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