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At 09:01 2000/08/08 -0400, mary ann wrote: >> suicide >> is a not a failure of the individual >> but rather of the system > >I've avoided the discussion concerning suicide until now, but >this is too much. I'm tired of the new-age philosophy that >the individual is never at fault, but the system is. Garbage. > >We are all in control of our own lives - just ask those smokers >who insist that they have a right to smoke (which, in my opinion, >is a form of suicide).*Some* people who commit suicide are out >of control - but not all. So, to blame a system (albeit, a flawed >one) for suicides is like blaming the system for people smoking. >Choices are made by individuals - not systems. hi mary ann i agree with virtually all you say here and have always advocated individuals taking responsibility for their actions but as i've said before the dastardly thing about clinical depression is that it distorts your perceptions and cognition in such a way that rational choices slide further and further out of reach the world health organization has declared clinical depression the most common disability world wide and it is the most undiagnosed and untreated disability world wide despite being curable, and despite having been so for years and clinical depression is the direct cause of the vast majority of suicides if someone is blinded temporarily is it their 'decision' to walk off a cliff: -if they don't know it's there? -if there are no guard rails? -if there are no seeing eye dogs? -if they are surrounded by a society that overtly and covertly tells them they are not really blinded they just need to work harder to open their eyes and pay more attention? why do we empathize with physical disabilities and not with mental disabilities? janet janet paterson 53 now / 44 dx cd / 43 onset cd / 41 dx pd / 37 onset pd tel: 613 256 8340 url: "http://www.geocities.com/janet313/" email: "[log in to unmask]" smail: PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada