As you have said, you are not alone in your challenges. There is help that works. You deserve to live a happy life in spite of any hidden opinion you have to the contrary. I wish you wellness.

1) it’s disgustingly easy to hide even severe problems from anyone, including your family. only 1 person in my family knows about my suicide attempts…because i told them. i am covered in scars + bruises from self-harming…but i have never had a problem hiding/explaining away the new ones even to partners. with many forms of mental illness come the benefits of paranoia. self-repression and fanatical secrecy. there’s even the joy of a self-loathing so intense that even if you weren’t hideously embarrassed to admit you have a problem, you may decide that you are not worthy of help.

2) i’ve seen some seriously deranged behaviour from people who, to all intents and purposes, are completely sane. and yes, anyone can be pushed to violence given the right trigger.

Whenever we start to think that we’re the “normal/sane/good” ones, and “those people” who do bad things are qualitatively different from us, then we’re on the path to some major self-deception and potentially some big trouble.

Mike, my sentiments exactly.

Thank you for being so much more eloquent than me.

I cannot even remotely imagine myself acting out violently toward anyone – let alone with a gun.

Really? What if someone raped you? What if someone hurt your parents? What if you were wrongfully judged and condemned? What is someone put you on stage naked and laughed at you? What if someone hurt your baby? What if some religious fanatics flew a couple of planes into buildings in your own back yard and destroyed what you love and hold dear to your heart?

Can you gurantee that you would be able to remain sane, rational, and passive?

They are our sons, our brothers, our cousins, and our friends. They are ourselves. They are you and me. I am fully capable of walking into a building with a loaded machine gun. Given the right amount of judgment, condemnation, dismissal, and betrayal, I can grow that hatred that is beyond rationality.

I agree Linda. I was first struck with this realization when I visited the death camp of Auschwitz in Poland and saw pictures of the Nazi guards. They were just young guys, kids of 18 or 19, as I was at the time. And I realized that they weren’t that different from me – that if circumstances had been different in my life, that could have been me; that the same darkness that led to the atrocities of Auschwitz lives within my own heart, lives within all of us really.

It’s comforting to think that “I could never do something like that”, but it’s dangerous too, because it’s not necessarily true. It’s the same mentality that makes Americans think that we’re always automatically the good guys and that we could never act in tyrannical ways. Whenever we start to think that we’re the “normal/sane/good” ones, and “those people” who do bad things are qualitatively different from us, then we’re on the path to some major self-deception and potentially some big trouble.

I am fully capable of walking into a building with a loaded machine gun. Given the right amount of judgment, condemnation, dismissal, and betrayal, I can grow that hatred that is beyond rationality.

I’m sorry to hear that. I agree with you that mentally ill people need love and support, but I cannot even remotely imagine myself acting out violently toward anyone – let alone with a gun.

They are our sons, our brothers, our cousins, and our friends. They are ourselves. They are you and me. I am fully capable of walking into a building with a loaded machine gun. Given the right amount of judgment, condemnation, dismissal, and betrayal, I can grow that hatred that is beyond rationality.

These kids want to be loved unconditionally — not put into a category, labeled, studied, and “helped.”