playing peace keeper

MalRiggs · August 2014

Can we all just cool it

obviously this is a very deep issue for many and one we people have very clear thoughts/opinions on.

this just maybe a topic we need to "agree to disagree on"
I don't want to see anyone get there feeling hurt and leave

just saying

marshmallows · August 2014

My other BMB just divided and blew up today after over 4 years so I'd really like to not witness that again in one day! So yea, I'd like to cool it as well. I know little about this topic (thankfully) and am deeply saddened for those that leave and are left that way. That is all. Things like this don't ever make sense.

MalRiggs · August 2014

I have personally dealt with it.

holly321 · August 2014

I usuallly try to avoid conflict around here, and I am going to use a cliche, but if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Seriously, that is a bold statement to make about a very sensitive subject.

Moty2013 · August 2014

Sterling13 said:
So stating opinions strongly knowing that everyone on the board might not agree with you makes you a bully? Well, let's all just go sit in a corner and sing kumbaya lest we ever have a discussion.

Seriously, Even with the ultra tame feb 13 hair braiders I don't know how someone would think posting on such a sensitive topic was gonna get a kumbaya. You would think one would know there were going to be people planted firmly on the other side of this topic

TarheelMama202 · August 2014

I honestly can't believe anyone would have the gall to make such a broad statement about mental illness for many reasons. For now, I'll just stick with two.

1. We don't know the story of every person who has suffered from depression, contemplated suicide, attempted to OR actually took their own life. It's completely inappropriate to claim that suicide is a selfish act because every person's experience and battle is so different.

2. --and this is the kicker-- I find it absolutely shameful that someone would say that suicide is selfish and essentially shame those suffering from severe depression knowing the amount of women on this board who have openly discussed mental health issues within their own families and themselves. The sheer number of us who have struggled with debilitating PPD and shared our experiences on the board should be enough to keep anyone from making such hurtful comments.

I don't care if you're the most beloved person on the board, as adamwife was. You cannot possibly say those words and expect to get a chorus of agreement or a group of women to bite their tongues. No. Just no.

So by all means, if you have feelings. Share them. I will not do any policing. A line was crossed.

TarheelMama202 · August 2014

So Sterling rightfully defending the opposite side of the discussion makes her a bully? Oh, okay. Then there sure are a lot of bullies on our board.

mishka29 · August 2014

DC2London said:

My concern is that agreeing to disagree perpetuates the very misconceptions about mental illness that have allowed it to become such an epidemic. Lack of awareness is part of the problem. Lack of education is part of the problem. Lack of sensitivity and empathy (quite often due to a lack of education) is part of the problem.
I am not directing that at anyone here; I mean that as a general statement about the treatment of mental illness in the US as a whole. We do a crappy job of identifying and treating mental illness. We do an even worse job of understanding it.
Wifeofadam may have unknowingly done a tremendously helpful thing here by starting a dialog about depression. Talking about it and our (staggeringly high number of) experiences with it may just have reached someone who was previously underinformed. Maybe some lurker out there didn't realize how all-consuming and logic-robbing depression is until reading the many, many stories shared here tonight. And maybe that one lurker has learned something that will change and better inform the way she approaches those with mental illness. If one mind is changed, then that is progress.

I really appreciate the stories people have shared because I am that lurker that doesn't understand. We were talking about suicide at work the other day bc the subway was shutdown after someone jumped in front of a train. Many people commented that it was selfish bc it was inconvenient for commuters but for me I said it was selfish bc they didn't kill themselves, they made the train driver do it, which is something that person will now I have to live with. I never considered or understood what that person might be going through and 'the loggic-robbing depression'. This conversation also made me realize that people I work with, myself included, are unaware and uneducated about mental illness. So again, thank you ladies for sharing your stories because I have learned something.

TarheelMama202 · August 2014

DC2London said:
Sterling is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't get the impression that she intended her thread to be a call-out, in any way. I thought she was starting a new thread to contradict and bump down the thread whose title she found offensive.

This, exactly.

kleigh926 · August 2014

@tarheelmama202, I agree with a lot of what you said. But a line was also crossed the other way. Someone accused adamwife of abandoning a friend in need when she was recovering herself. How is that okay?

kleigh926 · August 2014

Accusing someone of sharing the blame for a friend's suicide by abandoning them is way worse IMO than calling suicide selfish. Several people said they understood how it could be viewed as selfish. Adamwife was at that point herself and still thought it was selfish. My own husband almost committed suicide and even though I knew his state of mind, there still would've been a part of me that thought it was selfish. We all process things differently. Yeah, everyone's emotional about this, but seriously?

ally2011 · August 2014

The Matt Walsh blog did not say that Robin Williams was selfish. I just read it in its entirety and his response to critics which I am linking. Both of my parents have lost a parent to suicide, and I have no issue with his points. If others do, let's discuss, but only after reading the actual posts. www.themattwalshblog.com/2014/08/13/depression-isnt-choice-suicide-response-critics/

ally2011 · August 2014

verovladamir said:

A facebook friend posted a link to the Matt Walsh blog that started a lot of this discussion, claiming that Robin Williams was selfish for taking his own life.
I'll just repost my comment here since I don't feel like restating all of it:
Here's my problem with that original post: Yes, suicide is a choice you make. To family members and friends left behind it seems like an incredibly selfish choice. But to someone who is depressed, it doesn't look that way. I have struggled with depression for a good portion of my life. It got even worse after both of my children. It was deep, it was dark, and it was lonely. But the most striking thing about depression is not necessarily the sadness, but the irrationality. You have thoughts, terrible thoughts. And sometimes, on good days, you can tell the difference between what is real and what is just the depression talking. But on those really really bad days, the days where it physically hurts you to get out of bed, you can't tell the difference. You are completely out of focus and out of touch. You can't be happy like everyone wants. You feel like you are burdening them because you can't feel things in a normal way. At that point, taking yourself out of the picture seems rational, even thoughtful. I honestly thing rhetoric, like that in Matt Walsh's original post, comes from a place of misunderstanding and distance. Depression is a very very difficult disease to understand if it isn't something you have gone through on your own. It's not just sadness. It is an all-consuming disease. It can't be willed or rationalized away and I think it hurts a lot of people very deeply when someone implies that it can be. That we just didn't try enough, pray enough, think enough. It would be wonderful if it really were that simple and I think a lot of people (myself included) really wish it worked like that. For me it has been years of struggle and it will probably continue to be. This is something that I will probably have to live with for the rest of my life. When you combine that realization with the irrational thoughts that depression can cause, it becomes at least a little easier to understand why suicide may seem like a good idea.

Hugs to you, I am sorry for your struggles. I did just want to say that if you read the follow up piece, I don't think you are in conflict with the blogger for the most part. I thought his commentary about the choice of suicide was empowering and I am posting it here, but read the whole link above. You may disagree with some of it, but a lot of what is repeated is just a caricature if the actual post. "There is no doubt that suicide, by definition, is a willful act. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be suicide. It is a choice. That’s why we call it suicide. Suicide: the intentional taking of one’s life. There is no debating this. To say suicide is not a choice is to speak nonsense. It’s to say suicide is not suicide. Now, do I call it a choice in order to “shame” the suicidal? Do I say it to “blame” the dead? No, I say it because those on the brink need to be empowered, not told that they have no chance and no choice. I say these things for the living, not the dead. Many intelligent folks have pointed out that suicide is a choice, but one made by a mind submerged in an unspeakable darkness. Suicide is a choice, but one chosen under great duress. To these people, let me offer this stipulation: of course. Yes. I never said otherwise. But ALL destructive choices are made under these circumstances. ALL. Every single one. The more destructive the choice, the more troubled the mind. We should realize this, certainly, but should we then deny the will itself? Should we tell the destructive man that he has no power and no options? If suicide is not a choice, why do we tell people not to do it? Why do we tell them to get help? Why do we try to stop them?"

ally2011 · August 2014

DC2London said:

While Matt Walsh's post on Williams wasn't entirely without its valid points, the first half of it makes me want to scream. And he was an entitled, arrogant chauvanist long before that post. I would cite specific examples here but I'd rather not contribute to any more traffic to his blog.

Then that makes it kind if hard to discuss....

ally2011 · August 2014

Just skimmed again and am truly not sure what you mean.

ally2011 · August 2014

Sterling13 said:

@ally2011‌ did he post one entry then a follow up? I'm at work and don't have time to read the links right now.

Yes. This is the original, the above is the follow up. https://themattwalshblog.com/2014/08/12/robin-williams-didnt-die-disease-died-choice/

Puck1182 · August 2014

DC2London said:
While Matt Walsh's post on Williams wasn't entirely without its valid points, the first half of it makes me want to scream. And he was an entitled, arrogant chauvanist long before that post. I would cite specific examples here but I'd rather not contribute to any more traffic to his blog.

Yeah, I've read a number of his posts in the past but I just can't even go there anymore. Even when he has a valid point, most of the time he expresses it in a way that is hateful and/or inflammatory. He's clearly not going to change the mind of anyone who already disagrees with him, and even when he would make a point I agreed with, the way he went about making it almost made me change my mind because of how he said it.

ally2011 · August 2014

Sterling13 said:

I'll read them later, but from what you posted here's my two cents: yes, fundamentally suicide is a choice. But not a rational one. Not one a healthy person makes. For those who do it, it doesn't feel like a choice, it feels like the only way out. Depression crushes logic and free will, and in my option free will is what makes us human. Depression robs us of our humanity. It crushes us. So to say it's like any other bad choice we make or equate it with a sin (which I assume that's where he was going) is wrong. It's so far beyond that.

He doesn't equate it with sin.

ally2011 · August 2014

DC2London said:

ally2011 said:

DC2London said:

While Matt Walsh's post on Williams wasn't entirely without its valid points, the first half of it makes me want to scream. And he was an entitled, arrogant chauvanist long before that post. I would cite specific examples here but I'd rather not contribute to any more traffic to his blog.

Then that makes it kind if hard to discuss....

I'm ok with that. I think we've discussed the "suicide is a choice" point as much as we can

That was not the only take away from the article. I didn't bring the post up, vero stated that he said Robin Williams was selfish, which he didn't. Then there was name calling of the blogger, so I went to see what the fuss was about. When I found no issue with either post, I was honestly curious what posters here were upset about.

ally2011 · August 2014

Sterling13 said:

Well that's good. I have heard that argument before.

As have I and it is irrational. BTW, you could have read both pieces by now if you'd quit reading and posting here

I am headed out in a minute, just teasing you.

kleigh926 · August 2014

I think there needs to be a distinction between depression and suicide. I feel like the two were made to be almost the same thing during some of this discussion. Depression is not a choice. Suicide is a choice, but the people who are at that point do not view it as selfish (I'm not inside the minds of everyone, but at least I don't think most of them view it as selfish). As I shared before, when my DH was suicidal, he thought the opposite way: he was convinced everyone would be better off without him, so suicide, in his opinion, was very unselfish because he thought he'd be doing everyone a favor. When I asked DH last night if he thought suicide is a choice, he said yes. I asked him, "Even though you felt there was no other way out?" He replied, "I didn't think there was any other way out, but I still chose not to do it."

I actually really like the way Matt Walsh put it as quoted above. Knowing that suicide IS a choice is empowering to those who are contemplating it and could encourage them to get help. There IS another way out, there IS hope. It doesn't have to happen. I think these thoughts are what kept my DH barely hanging on a few months ago: the faint glimmer of hope that maybe things wouldn't always be that bad, and that he didn't HAVE to take his own life.

Moty2013 · August 2014

I think @kleigh926‌ is right that depression and suicide have been linked as one and the same in this discussion. Every situation is different just as every person is different. lets just say is an anorexic starving them selves to death just as much a choice as suicide or as someone also pointed out an addict drinking or dosing themselves to death. A depressed person who's is bipolar to the point of entering a psychosis can at times have no way to tell what is real and what is not. If this type of person "chooses" to kill themselves is that selfish? For the sake of not hashing out every single scenario I won't go into all the ways your thinking could be different. But To generalize and say all suicides are a selfish choice is wrong and unfair. It frustrates me to hear people say I've been depressed or I've attempted suicide so I know or get a say. Just because you may have attempted suicide and failed doesn't mean you get to JUDGE someone who attempted suicide and succeeded.

Moty2013 · August 2014

I will say one final thing on this matter before I go back into my lurkdom. One of the main reasons I was a lurker is because I valued hearing from a cross group of moms going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. You ladies have helped me out with soo much. You gave me peace of mind in the dark days of new mom anxiety. You will never even know how many times my mind was set at easy just from logging on and seeing someone else was At least asking the same question as me. I don't really like conflict so I avoided the social aspect. (Although I enjoyed watching from the shadows $:\$ "> ) this is a topics (as you might have noticed) that is close to my heart. As it obviously is to so many of you. Things got very heated. I'm not even sure they're done for everyone. But I do hope when the dust settles you guys can find a way to put this back together again. It was a beautiful thing for so long

Now how about that kumbaya!

Moty2013 · August 2014

@luxannie‌ lol. I love all of those things. So much. I will try to join your next bump party. I'm on the west coast though so I'm not sure how well that will work. But I will try

Unknown · August 2014

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