Non-violence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea
By Mark Kurlansky
Jesus and Nonviolence
By Walter Wink
They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky
by Alphonsion Deng, Benson Deng, Benjamin Ajak, and Judy A. Bernstein
Apr
4
Mar
7
I read an article today that read “It is estimated that 19 Million Americans struggle with depression. 2/3 are never treated. Untreated depression is the #1 cause of suicide. Suicide is the #3 cause of death among young adults.”. Depression might be bigger and more widespread than we ever realized. Over the course of my life I’ve had a roller-coaster of thoughts regarding depression. Everything from “why don’t these people get over their self pity, and face life like a real man (or woman)” to “this is the worst thing that can happen to someone, and it’s out of control”. This roller-coaster was obviously heavily influenced by what I’ve experienced in my own life.This is a tricky area of medicine/psychology/etc. The mind is so incredibly complex. What is physical? What is mental? How does it come about? Is it socialized? Is it hereditary? I don’t think there is any definite answer, it most likely is a little bit of everything. Which sucks for someone who wants to have the answers. I don’t think I’ll get into these questions at all in this post, but wanted to write a little about the reality of what we face in our world, and shed a little ‘light’ on this ‘dark’ topic.
Our society is finally starting to progress when it comes to issues of the mind. Thankfully we’ve come a long way from just throwing someone in a insane asylum. We now have a vast array of treatments (this is mostly good, but does have it’s negative side but I’m not going there right now).
Here are some more simple facts about depression…
- Often people who are depressed do not recognize the illness, and see it as a weakness or personality flaw.
- In Australia, New Zealand and Japan, there are more suicides than murders.
- Depression is treatable.
- Self Injurers use physical pain as an attempt to calm or numb the psychological pain or stress. They injure the outside in an attempt to release the pain on the inside.
As I am writing this I’m realizing how vast this topic is to actually write about, and thus will stick to leaving this post as an overview, and perhaps I’ll write more in the future regarding specifics. I just want to do my part to help get rid of the stigma attached to mental illness, and to help people realize that we all have flaws, we all have messed up things going on in our head that we’ll rarely admit to anyone else, and if at some point it becomes too much to bare, there are healthy, normal options, and your not alone.