De·pres·sion : diˈpreSHən : [noun] : Severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.
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Here,
this fellow is crossing
the pedestrian overpass at Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
It speaks to me of how many who suffer with mental illness,
walk in the shadows of life.
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The recent, tragic suicide of Robin Williams
has started a lot of conversations about depression,
mental illness and suicide,
which is good.
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For a country and culture that touts openness and forward thinking,
mental illness has still remained a taboo subject.
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Therefore, people with problems coping with circumstances in their daily lives
are often left to live in quiet desperation.
For some their chronic pain,
illness or mental illness becomes something they can no longer juggle,
they feel burdensome to others,
that the world would be better off without them,
and so tragically they take their own lives.
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If one positive thing
can come out of Robin’s death,
it is my prayer that it would be that those so afflicted,
can be open about their troubles and find
compassion and helpful treatment
by our state of the art medical community.
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I lost a grandfather to suicide,
he had silicosis and was slowly suffocating to death
and a good friend who was in chronic pain
that the medical community wouldn’t treat sufficiently
to give him relief enough to live
in some measure of comfort.
Both tragedies.
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Mental illness is indeed one of the last taboos.
I so hope that we can shine a light onto it and dispell those shadows.
Yes, I couldn’t agree more. A nephew committed suicide…after he beat cancer!…:(JP
Great shot Madge I just heard on the news Robin Williams had Parkinson’s so it is so very sad for many many reasons. Awareness is the key in depression we need to listen and learn more about it there is much need. Hug B
I’ve coped with chronic depression most of my adult life. My brother once thought that all I had to do was “pull myself up by my bootstraps” and I’d be better. But like so many, mine has nothing to do with sadness or circumstances; it’s a matter of an inbalance of chemicals. I think more education is needed.
Very cool shot.
I wrote a post on depression. I’m wondering if it’s a normal reaction to a hard world. It’s the happy people who are out of touch with reality, thanks to being drunk on adaptive brain chemicals.
Parkinson Disease and him being unstable …very very sad.
This is a nice shot. See you later for Top Shot.
You raise a significant issue.
So incredibly sad but the positive thing is that the whole world seems to be uniting to make Robin Williams’ death turn into positive thoughts to help others along the way and to talk about feelings. A much loved man that conquered so much apart from his own demons.
About R. Williams, I’ll just leave it at this… “Fame is overrated”.
Striking photo, Madge. I like the colors, too. Recently, I was in our local cemetery, where I was photographing those wild sweet peas. In a relatively small area, there were headstones of 3 young people who had committed suicide within the last 3 years. So terribly tragic.