[quote=@HeySeuss]
I don't think it's cynical. I think it's something to try and keep in mind if you can. I realize it's often hard for someone to reassure themselves within their own mind -- if it were that easy, psychotherapists would be rendered unnecessary -- but for every one person speaking up, there's a bunch more that are scared of the judgment and reaction they get from others.

But that's sort of the point -- people are often ships passing in the night. We can't know all of each other's struggles entirely, but usually we can grasp enough of the essentials to relate if we are inclined to. Of course, it's a good idea to remember this -- the stigma of mental illness is not how different people with mental illnesses are. It's how much of ourselves we see in people with mental illness and how we recoil from the thought of being in that situation ourselves. 

I'm not trying to defend something that has turned into a societal practice of treating entire groups of people terribly, but the response isn't necessarily about you, it's about their own bullshit.
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Apologies, but I don't really get what you're saying. I'm probably still be tired/waking up and I apologize for that, but I think the bottomline gist of it is that it isn't a cynical mindset, but there's no way we can truly feel another's pain, right?