[vinbreau]

My wife put her foot down eventually and told me she wasn't going to be able to live with me any more after too many verbal angry outbursts. I received an ADHD diagnosis as a child but was never treated. I lived with the extreme anger all my life and only recently sought treatment as an adult. Doing that was really hard after a lifetime of people telling me it was simply a matter of adjusting my attitude and that I brought all my troubles on myself.

I'm finally on treatment after 45 years of that unending anger. It is definitely depression mixed with ADHD and anxiety. I'll have to see a therapist about potential PTSD issues. Adult depression can be a nasty mix of various issues and treating only one pillar can leave the rest to continue.

Seeking the help from a doctor was almost impossible. It took me years to get up the nerve to mention it. Why? Because it was all my fault, I had been told this so for long that I was embarrassed. What if he tells me it's just a matter of eating right and that I'm just a regular guy? I was mortified of being rejected for treatment. Thankfully that didn't happen.

It can be very hard for people to seek treatment, the stigma of not being able to perform like everybody else around you, all the while being told to just cheer up, think positive, be happy, you can do it! It's crushing.

[GlenTheMachine]

Yes. If you break your leg, that's an injury, and you see a doctor. If you get pneumonia, you're sick and you need antibiotics.

But if your brain isn't working right that's a moral failure.

[socceroos]

I dislike modern notions of abdicating responsibility for one's own actions by pointing to other problems.

I believe we're all personally responsible for our output. You can have the worst input in the history of mankind - and this should generate sympathy, understanding and a desire to help - but your output is still entirely your responsibility.

The are circumstances where someone can be considered incapable of reasonable output or the reasonable processing of input, but these circumstances are the exception to the rule.

[nvrspyx]

That's much easier said than done. Depression messes with a lot of systems and it's hard for anyone to recognize in themselves. If it was so easy to control, people wouldn't need treatment. It's so serious precisely because it interferes with daily functioning and it can't easily be controlled. This seems very narrow-minded in regards to the ripple effect that depression has on so many emotional systems. You're asking people to juggle a hundred things. It's just not feasible.

Now, this totally depends on how you define "reasonable" output, but it sounds a lot like telling someone with depression to just stop feeling depressed.

[socceroos]

You're right that it is much, much easier said than done. Getting to the bottom of _why_ you're behaving the way you are almost always takes a lot of thoughtful introspection, and often, meaningful and honest conversation with trustworthy, wise and knowledgable people around you. It also requires you to allow yourself to be vulnerable, humble and honest - none of which are easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Anecdotally, the pursuit of truly understanding your own intentions, behaviour and true 'self' is, I believe, a worthy lifetime pursuit that continuously yields surprises and benefits - some of those benefits being immeasurable.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you're guarding against and concerned that empathy, sympathy, understanding and genuine care seem to be set aside when you focus, detrimentally, on the responsibility of the individual - even when that individual may be adversely affected by their circumstance.

I want to be clear that I would agree with you that when you set aside the concerns and context of the individual in the rigorous pursuit of justice or recompense then you do a harmful injustice to that person. True care and love need to be shown as a counterbalance to objective requirements and observations. If you take one without the other then, ultimately, everyone loses.

However, I believe it is important to specify there is a crucial distinction to be made between personal suffering, weakness and struggle and ones responsibility for their own actions, thoughts and words.

To put it another way, the things going on in your life as an individual do not, in any objective way, modify, absolve or exonerate the responsibility you must take for your choices in actions, thoughts and words.

Again in other terms, the inputs of your various life experiences, the proclivities inherent in your own physical makeup and the character flaws present in your nature as an individual do not, in any objective way, modify, absolve or exonerate the responsibility you must take for your actions, thoughts and words.

I've suffered my fair share of depression - I still grapple with the long-lasting effects of it. I can also attest to anger being one of the many things that were exacerbated by my depression.

I needed people around me to show understanding and care for my situation, and to be aware of where I might have particular struggles (short-temperedness, anxiety, conspiracy, neediness, apathy, etc).

They did show loving understanding, but that never absolved me of my objective responsibilities to myself or them. That is why I can say that my depression was extremely difficult and harrowing, but I am genuinely sorry for the manner in which I treated others as it was, objectively, inexcusable. That doesn't mean they didn't excuse many of my behaviours, they did, but their acts of long-suffering, graciousness and kindness didn't absolve my personal responsibility for what I chose to do.

I was never asked to stop feeling depressed - I was gently cared for, but I was also never told that my actions, thoughts or words were justified by my circumstance. I'm truly thankful for that.

My hope is that, as a society, we're all keenly aware of that balance of personal responsibility and gentle kindness and understanding. I personally feel like there is a significant portion of our society that justifies away the former by pointing to circumstance.

[shar3333f]

Childhood issues with emotional abuse/bullying can & do cause emotional systems to become unbalanced though.

It is not a matter of pure free will. If our emotional brain has been trained to scream at us with anxiety at a specific situation or if it is constantly on high alert it becomes tiring to maintain composure and outbursts may provide an outlet.

Now, a person can recognise this issue and visit a therapist to seek help with their emotional issues. But it first requires them to have recognition of the problem. I do not think it's an exceptional case where people are oblivious of their emotional brain causing them to have an irrational reaction to a situation. In fact I think it is quite common.

[davesque]

It's really about what's effective. For a lot of people who deal with depression, feeling like people are blaming them makes things way worse. In that sense, blame simply doesn't work to bring about a different outcome, even if someone seems entirely culpable from a common viewpoint.

[scotty79]

> You can have the worst input in the history of mankind

What if you have not the worst input but the worst hardware to process it?

[ip26]

Maybe we just need to reframe it a bit. If you have strep and you don't get help & take care of it, that's a moral failure (you'll get other people sick). If you have mental illness and you don't get help & take care of it, that's the moral failure.

[zepto]

It would be nice if that analogy worked, but there is no psychological equivalent of antibiotics and although psychological and psychiatric treatments can be helpful, they often aren’t, and equally people actually do frequently recover from mental health issues without treatment.

[yesenadam]

Well, with at least some mental illnesses, e.g. hearing voices, the illness in part is that you think the voices are real. It doesn't occur to you that you might need the help of a psychiatrist. The whole thing develops out of trying to make sense of what you assume are real voices. Which is impossible, and drives you nuts making the attempt. [That happened to me, for a couple of years.]

[jhayward]

> If you have mental illness and you don't get help & take care of it, that's the moral failure.

No. Mental illness directly impinges on the executive functions of the brain, which are what one uses to discern reality, weigh options, make plans, and motivate action.

You are simply calling mental illness a moral failure.

[renholder]

>But if your brain isn't working right that's a moral failure.

See? That's that shit - right there - that makes mental health so stigmatised that people won't seek help.

[GlenTheMachine]

Completely agree. To be clear, I'm not expressing this opinion. I'm agreeing with the parent that it's all too often the view of society, and that it actively prevents people from seeking help.

[davesque]

That's exactly what OP was saying.