Been silently following this thread for some time.

At first, I wasn't sure what to think of it, but it led me to two thoughts. One, it sucks knowing that other people have struggled as well, because I seriously know the pain. And two, it may be the cynicism speaking, but I'm a bit glad that I'm not alone in this world.

I just turned seventeen about two weeks ago and I can gladly say that society doesn't want to help you as much as it wants to pity you. There is a lot of tactics to dealing with different illnesses, but it really isn't as cut and clear than what Dookie is trying to get across here (or at least how I read it, sorry if I read it wrong, still waking up here). There is more to recovery than just shoving someone into an asylum, therapy or encouraging them to see a psychiatrist. 

I know you should [u]never[/u] use yourself in a debate, but I'm going to speak from personal experience here. I'm a victim of heavy child abuse from an early age (around four or five) and because of it, have developed anxiety, hyperviligiance and what may be PTSD (aren't sure about this one entirely, I just bear some of the symptoms as professionally diagnosed). I've been therapy my entire life and ironically, it's indirect result as to what messed it up. In order to see my psychologist every week, I had to see a psychiatrist once a month. I didn't particularly like this psychiatrist since she had it in her mind that I was going to kill myself every day of the week and eventually, diagnosed me to a bunch of medication that never helped and ironically, made it worse (Zoloft, Prozac, etc, etc). 

As Seuss said, there is a lot of stigma for it as well: as I said earlier, society wants to pity you, not entirely help you. If I tell someone what happened to me, they all reaction differently, but it mostly leads to the same path: they never look at me the same way again. There's a lot of pressure for finding a psychiatrist and doctor, since someone who may be struggling from heavy depression or bipolarism, may want to be normal or want acceptance without being pressured into something. 

And at the end of the day, people will always react one of two ways:

1.) They'll think you're b*tching or full of it. 
2.) They'll just say "I'm sorry, is there anything I can do to help?"

Though it looks good on paper for sure, the second one isn't always the best answer. People who say that don't always necessarily understand and from experience, tend to overstep personal boundaries or take advantage of whatever pain you may be going through. In short, I have yet to see society truly understand without having to sit through the same thing themselves.

And honestly, speaking from someone who is bothered by it, I can honestly say I'd really rather they didn't.

//Sorry if that was really off-topic or didn't make any sense or riddled with spelling errors, just woke up, but saw the mini-debate and thought I'd join in.