Re:Anthony Bourdain has died
by oldsklgdfth on Friday June 08, 2018 @10:17AM
(#17265599)
I think that analogy brings up a good point. Does someone consciously choose to succumb to dying of cancer? And this probably evolves into a discussion about choices and free will.
I guess what I'm trying that isn't isolated to depression and mental illness. If you have asthma you use an inhaler, but you should probably not smoke.
If you have clinical depression there are medical ways to address that, but you probably should not put yourself in situations that will make that worse.
For some, depression is an episode or collection of episodes in life. For others, it's a chronic condition. He lived decades (from other accounts) with a chronic condition and succumbed to it.
Sometimes, toxic environments contribute and I don't want to suggest otherwise, but for those with chronic unipolar depression, it is a condition that people die of. It's sad, but so long as we understand that it's illness, we can get over the polemics.