That's part of the problem. You shouldn't give an ats rass if someone says that. You shouldn't try to please people and you shouldn't let other's views of you affect your own view of yourself. And usually when someone calls you out on a problem, it's their problem, not yours.

You're assuming everyone has a choice in how their brain handles things. Many do. some don't.

Thats something I (and people like me) have to work on. One of the roots of my problem is people saying that kind of shit to me all my life. One could say I care too much about how people think of me.

Indeed. That's the goal. It's not easy to rewire decades of brain washing and a genetic predisposition to BiPolar and Depression.

I worry way too much about just about everything. Even with all of the tools I've learned, I haven't gotten rid of it all. In time I will, but that day is not this day.

People saying things like "Buck up! Nothings wrong with you! You're just being a baby" just feeds my already low self esteem. And it pisses me off. Basically they are saying they don't believe mental health is "a thing" at all. As if physical injury is the only valid problem one can have.

To those people, I say "fuck off".

Indeed. If you really want to know, I've improved greatly the past few years. Used to be I couldn't leave the house for more than incredibly urgent things (like food) for months and months. Now, I have an actual job, took a trip to my mom's place in Nova Scotia for a few weeks, and may hit up Chicago soon. Oh and I hang with some cool people at a local Hacker Space here in town.

append:

You don't spend 10 years doing something and not at least become competent.

I taught myself how to program instead of go to highschool. figured I should do something with my time at least

I need to get better, cause there's shit I want to do, yo.

I'm not sure what you mean?

I think the most insidious thing about depression is its a change in how your brain works. Most people don't even know they are depressed until someone tells them.

People tend to find introspection hard to begin with, but when your brain is lying to you, it makes it harder than it needs to be.

The other part is if you're depressed, you just don't give a crap. It's tough to fight, especially if you don't realize it's a problem.

Congratulations! That had all the tact and finesse of a rhinoceros crafting a Swiss watch. You played the Devil's Advocate there with admirable mastery. Nonetheless, the underlying theme is clear, and it would appear to be a sinister attempt at assisting by putting the theory into practice, simulating an inane mis-comprehension of the condition of depression, to the end of testing the grade of recovery of those here who do have the condition. Here is another one...

"Have some chicken soup. It cures everything."

This would be the same Friedrich Nietzsche who produced this gem of a line;

...and who also (hello, hello) suffered from severe depression. I therefore concede - and I say this with the uttermost respect for you - that you have proffered before us an excellent example. Nihilism was my own solution, back in the day, and it has worked a treat, as it has been over sixteen years since I have allowed anything to be important enough to get "depressed" about. It may still be there; it just does not get me anymore. The following quote of yours is the exact same approach of self indifference that I found to function and which extricated me, personally, from recurrent bouts of being stuck in the mire and allowed me to achieve my own goal, deadpan as my reaction to its accomplishment may have been...

However, those who would really mean that (top, first quoted) type of comment are clearly confusing depression with normal teenage or an under-achiever's transient despondency. People with depression are not self pious mitherers. Quite the contrary, they are potentially the world's greatest achievers. The evidence is right here and has already been pointed out...

I would take it as face value and not read anything subversive or sarcastic into it, Thomas Fjellstrom. I believe that is what he is trying to demonstrate to you, for your own good. And then there is this evidence...

...which, believe it or not, would seem an inconceivable feat to most people, but is actually characteristic of the sort of determination a person with depression is capable of manifesting.

Winston Churchill, who lead a country through the world's most deadly conflagration and kept it on the winning side, and Abraham Lincoln, who dared to go against the grain of the norm of his society, are only two well known cases of people with depression who achieved something. There are many more, some not so noble, but none sat in a pool of their own tears waiting for someone to pick them up and commiserate.

I just don't find those results all that impressive

I kin reed 'n' 'rite 'n' cipher too! Wun an' naught is naught! Wun an' wun is too!...

That said, I'm watching "Every Which Way But Loose" and it just makes me happy inside. I invite you all to watch it and tell me if those characters would ever suffer from "depression" like you guys tell it. Yes, they do some pretty risky stuff, but they know the world won't end if they die, unlike mama's special snowflake.

No, but they're close enough to real people I've known.

[EDIT]

As a matter of fact, when I first put my two cents in this thread, I'd just spend a half-hour thinking about my month-long visit to my sister and brother in law back in '74. I think I mentioned him here before, yammering about us having a contest to see who'd step out furthest on a sandstone ridge (rounded off to a two meter radius) above a 130 meter drop to the rubble piled up below. Anyway, the anecdote I'm getting at was that he was driving along in his 283 Comet, with me as the passenger. We were going down a street, and about 20 bikers spread out to block the entire road. He slowed down a bit to ask me a couple questions. "Do you know why they did that?" "No" "They think they're gonna kick our asses! Do you know what we do next?" "No!" He doesn't answer as he drags the automatic down into first, and the upside down air cleaner lid howls as those intake valves grab air. The bikers scatter wildly in plenty of time for us to drive through the gap at 50 mph. Then (when I was safely back home) we found out my dad was in jail (again) and he was in pretty bad shape. He'd gone to Rattlesnake Road on the reservation, no doubt looking for some whores, but some guys had spread out and blocked the road. He stopped, and the result showed all over his face and the way he limped up to the glass at the visitor booth. I asked "Why didn't you floor it, so they'd get out of the way?" He replied "What? And kill them?" I replied "They'd have gotten out of the way" and he said no.

Since then, I've done that about three times, while driving cab and the passengers always freak out "What if they hadn't gotten out of the way?".

Shit, it's no use explaining

People with BiPolar 1 are very prone to doing crazy dangerous stuff. It's the whole "Manic" part of "Manic Depression" (aka BiPolar). Often people with it don't even get a serious depressive episode till they are middle aged. If they live that long.

See my edit above

[EDIT]

You get scared, yeah, but you don't let it make you run and hide, and vote for more government power. "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees" etc.

[EDIT2]

Oh, sure, I have lots of problems. I remember talking to my sister when I was about eight (?) and she said kids grow up to be like their parents, and therefore we shouldn't ever have kids who'd be in hell like we were, and for the last 30 years I always get cold feet when getting too close to a girl, thinking of that. I've never been married, only shacked up for five months at a time at most, but I don't whine how I'm "depressed", and need medication that apparently doesn't work. I am admitting here for the first time ever that I did go to some "therapist" on some sliding scale in '81 or so, and it was like talking to a Martian that had grown up in Leave It To Beavers neighborhood.

I still don't get what fear has to do with depression.