(April 2, 2014 at 2:52 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote:(April 2, 2014 at 2:29 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: Except you were agreeing with Capn's generalization that most people on the forum are depressed (or mentally ill in general) because of internet addiction. How on earth could either of you know that's the case?
First off, I don't think that most of the people on these forums are depressed. Most of them are just normal people.
However I would wager my last dollar that more people on these forums are depressed than in the average population. Maybe due to the fact that there are a million threads on depression or mental illness on here. It's not hard to see a link. I've been on the forum for a while now, I read it frequently when I'm not participating and have a good feeling for a lot of people on here and read a lot of the personal stories. Even though I don't really know anybody personally it's not hard to figure out that a lot of people on here are also addicted to the internet, don't exercise, rarely spend significant time outdoors, have problems with socializing in real life.
I don't say this to try to make anyone feel bad or to try to be insensitive. I care about the people on these forums. Most of them are good people regardless of personal issues that they are having, but it's not realistic to say they are depressed for no reason. Yes depression is a disease, but like most disease it is caused by something. Diseases don't just appear out of nowhere, they have causes. Too many people use the fact that depression is a disease as a shield that denies personal responsibility for their problems. It doesn't mean that I don't empathize with their problems or don't feel bad for them, but those problems exist for a reason. Also I would never tell someone to stop seeing their therapist or go off their meds. Sorry if my previous post came off as overly insensitive but I was just making a brief observation.
Ok, well, I'm a clinically depressed person on the forum, and I do yoga daily, hoop dance, spend lots of time outside- it's easy to do when you live where I do- and spend as much time with my friends/family as possible. Do you see why it might be offensive for you to make stereotypes like you have? And depression isn't necessarily caused by outside factors. In my case, I was born that way, just as many others were.
