Truth is frequently counterintuitive.

The answer is: because depression is a mental disorder that doesn’t give a fuck how “worthy” you seem to other people.

I feel compelled to share this bit of wisdom by David Foster Wallace everywhere I read anything about suicide in the hopes that it can help people - even one person - understand. (Kinja screwed up the formatting and won’t let me change it, but I feel like it’s kind of appropriate for the message.)

Having dealt with a number of family members with severe depression, there is also a sort of self-centeredness and narcisism that comes with it. At least in my experience.

“I always suspected the ugly, unpopular, untalented dorks would commit suicide. But when it happens to us attractive, talented, popular people? Man, that really hits close to home.”

I remember back in ancient times when Party of Five was on the air, and they did an episode where Neve Campbell’s character, who was graduating from high school, had a friend who killed herself. Everyone was horribly shocked and bewildered, not the least because the friend had just gotten early acceptance to Harvard.…

When I was an ugly, fat child with braces and glasses it never occurred to me that attractive or even average people could have problems. Here I was a virtual monster, how on earth could a pretty child be unhappy about anything? It took me until my late teens to figure out we all have issues, and that some pretty,…

I totally agree with you. To me they are saying- People who can’t understand suicide doubly can’t understand when it’s someone they deem successful or together. I don’t think many people can understand what mental illness feels like unless they also suffer.

I am sorry but that plays very little part in this. Japan has some of the highest suicide rates in the world and they don’t have access to any guns at all.

clickbait-y headline aside, there are some good points about the effects of how our culture defines success and happiness

Agreed. Depression is an illness, and illnesses don’t discriminate for class, education, social success or beauty.

One of the most important things is learning how to handle failure. For people who rarely experience it, it can be quite devastating. One of my cousins was considered the golden child and expected to do well. He failed in college because he never learned how to struggle. He sailed through school making him think it…

I refuse to read this post because COOOMMMMEEE OOONN!

Cougars are fascinating because they’re fucking big (dude-cougars can weigh as much as a NFL linebacker; gal-cougars can weigh more than Rhonda Rousey), but they are more closely related to a house cat than a lion. They’re also not domesticated. This means there is a chance you can scratch a cougar behind the ear and…

I don’t know- I think the man should be forced to have that stupid audio of himself saying “here kitty, kitty” on continuously loop in his ear, just loud enough for him to hear.

And they seem REALLY INTO being petted! Just like my big sweet housecat!

Oh, I am jealous! Those cats are cute and they loved being scratched. I want to play with the cute kitties too!

Do people who do this crap actually not have contact with real house cats, or do they not factor in increased size plus wild animal into their reasoning? Because, I adore cats, but even house cats are fucking scary. Like, one of my cats often gets over excited when being scratched and nips or swats you. It’s bad…

Okay but watch the video and tell me those pathetic cougar meows aren’t adorable.

Good, but still not enough. that animal could have been killed if it had bitten him - which would be perfectly normal behavior for a mountain lion.