Zar

I am curious as to why you feel so. Do you honestly think that any one person can completely comprehend another's emotions, thoughts, and motivations based on some superficial observations? By the way, I would opine that unless you are EXTREMELY close to the person in question, all of your observations are superficial.

I too used to think as you do Toaster (and JinnKai). I was smart, successful, and generally kicking ass in my daily life. I thought, jesus, these whiners should stop their fucking crying and man up. Then a number of events, combined with a genetic predisposition, conspired to depress the hell out of me. I tried to bring my old, arrogant way of thinking to what I was facing. It did not work. I became suicidal at one point, and am only here due to some wonderful friends.

I think the main issue I have with this thread is this very point. People who are riding the high wave of success and pride truly cannot understand what it is that people with depression go through. It is not a mild feeling of laziness and semi-sadness that one can shake off by just telling oneself to buck up. It is a deep, deep underlying feeling that pervades your every waking thought and action. You can feel it physically; it wraps itself around your innards and seems to be choking the life out of you in every waking moment. Life becomes a hollow husk of what it once was. Your mental processes are completely warped to the point that death really does look like the best option. This feeling continues from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year.

It does not matter what you are doing or what you are accomplishing in your daily life once the depression is in full swing. The depression abides. It whispers to you at your greatest moments, "This will not last. You are worthless." One can only recover from true depression through a combination of mental willpower (yes, I will grant you that a person has to WANT to recover from depression to do so... but one who is truly suffering from depression as I have known it, who would rather die than feel the way they do every waking moment, will not quibble this point), strong emotional support, and in some cases, professional help, which may include medication.

In short, depression is not something that can be wished away. This may be hard to understand if you have not experienced this soul-sucking feeling, and I sincerely hope that those of you have not felt like this do not. All the same, you'd have to walk a mile in my shoes to get me to listen to your half-cocked opinion on the matter.