[Ford_The_Win]

Where do I begin?
It's such a complex and broad topic that I just don't know whether it's worth even replying.

Understanding is the key here.

Just to clarify a little bit for people that don't have much knowledge of how depression/bi-polar etc work.

Some people have genuine mental illnesses that make them do strange and sometimes awful things.

Some other people are just bad in general - part of their personality and not necessarily a mental illness, although some psychologists would have you believe otherwise. Stressing the some here. Back in the '90s, it was fashionable to diagnose all and sundry with mental illnesses - like the boom in ADD/HD in the late '90s - there was no real boom, just enthusiastic doctors.

And no, depression is not a "cop out". It's not just a case of "hardening up".

First of all, most people are unaware of what depression actually is. If somebody has depression, they are severely distressed and potentially having suicidal thoughts for an extended period of time.

Most people suffering from "depression" are actually suffering from dysthymia - a kind of cyclical state of mind where they are consistently down about life, lose interest in relationships and things they enjoy, and every now and then, have a bout of severe depression as described before.

Imagine if you felt like that all the time, even things you previously enjoyed gave you no pleasure and had no hope for the future. It's hardly suprising that a lot of drug and alcohol abusers suffer from depression because it helps them mask their negative thoughts.

Bi-polar is an even more toxic train of thought, similar to dysthymia but slot in a few periods of mania - you feel great, on top of the world, nothing can stop you - people in this state of mind often do irrational things like spending lots of money or gambling - then of course they come crashing down and the mistakes they made when manic lead to even greater depths of depression.

I have several family members with mental illness and it is incredibly frustrating - sometimes you just want to shake them out of it. But you have to step back and put yourself in their shoes. Think about what it must take for somebody to kill his or herself. To go beyond all the survival instincts that are biologically built into all of us. How bad must they feel if that is the only solution to their problem?

It is not as simple as it seems, not by a long shot.