Life Goes On

I do believe this was made with best intentions but it has major "just be happy" energy and is made from a position of privilege.
Just getting a therapist for example is a huge battle. Having supportive friends is not ubiquitous. Changing jobs is risky and in certain financial circumstances almost impossible, especially with dependents.
That said I approve of the message that without living there is no possibility of things getting better. My advice is to focus on small maybe even tiny victories daily making lifestyle changes where possible.
- I respectfully disagree. Its thesis is simply that you can have a better life if you stay alive. The "proof" is simply all the changes the artist went through in order to find a better life. The changes aren't supposed to be a recipe on how to make your life better - I don't think the artist is telling people to divorce their spouses. There isn't anything "just be happy" about getting a divorce.
  
  Fair enough, I think yours is also a valid interpretation.
  I just want to clarify: with "just be happy" energy, I meant the tendency of people to suggest seemingly simple fixes to others struggling with mental health. Even, if they work for oneself and even if it works statistically (for example sport is a good habit against depression), it feels like talking the problem down. But that is highly subjective of course.
- And I do believe, that it's not the comic that was made from the position of privilege, but your fucking comment. Who the hell are you to approve it or not and spread out your advice instead? Come on, check yourself first
  
  Ok, what do you mean by checking myself first?
  I just commented on how I personally perceived the comic. I also said that I believe that the comic was made with good intentions.
  Ultimately, I am just someone on the Internet. I have no illusion that my comments here matter. Though, I do have first and second hand experience with depression and suicide if that matters, which it does not.
  And yes in many ways I am extremely privileged when it comes to this topic, e.g. my healthcare insurance is not tied to my employer as I don't live in the US. I would like to know how that has anything to do with my comment above though.
- Privilege? Risk? The guy was about to kill himself. He had nothing to lose. I see your point on kids, but barring significant hurdles (which most people don't actually have), most people motivated enough can significantly change their circumstances. They just don't want to.
  
  I can upload some data for you.
  I have a phone call a to crisis centers who told me "you don't have a crisis" and hung up on me. I have a recording of an on-call psychiatrist tossing me out of the ER after saying "don't try making this my responsibility" after I literally said I'm afraid I'll hurt myself or others, and asked what happens if I walk out of there and toss myself under a truck. "Don try making this my responsibility." Like, my man, it's literally your legal duty ffs.
  I've got photos of an isolation cell the cops put me because they denied me my prescription meds and I went a bit cuckoo from the way they treated me. (absolutely no information of rights I didn't know if I was detained or arrested or to be put in prison), and I drew over 300 words in my own blood on the walls. No-one helped. Up for three days, supposedly under supervision. The only thing I got was them cutting off my water and snide remarks bullying me on the radio.
  Several dozen doctors who've just dismissed me.
  Literally all of my family and friends, when I even carefully try to talk about suicidal ideation, they'll cut me off for months and months. My mom hasn't rang me for several years to ask me how I am. Yet they all pretend it's my fault and my personal failing that I'm not getting help, because every single one thinks "not my responsibility", and that includes an on-call psychiatrist I told I'm afraid of harming people.
  So yeah, kindly fuck off with your victim blaming.
  
  What do you mean with "they just don't want to"?
  Quitting your job, potentially losing your shelter and food supply is a hell of a risk. Presume one actually wants to get better, they first need to be well enough to handle such a risk. Otherwise, they are homeless and suicidal: A great recipe to get well /s
  
  "significant hurdles Which most people don't actually have"
  Interesting argument against privilege... buddy, we know you've had an easy life so far, which is great for you, yet no one thinks this way due to careful observation of others.

Lemmy people are not happy because this guy is
- Non-depressed Lemmy users when depressed people act depressed:
- Misery likes company, not perspective. Fuck happiness, yeah?
  
  People do prefer company to being told. I lost my brother to suicide, really messed me up bad. I did some volunteer work on a suicide prevention service, and people really just want a little bit of your time in the immediate sense, and social support structure long term. Most people have this with families, but it can get really bad when that falls apart due to anything negative in that space of their life.
  I know the saying is supposed to mean ''you'd rather make other people miserable than work on yourself'' but in a social sense, company works a lot better than telling someone it's not working and walking away.
- I think it has something to do with the guy saying he thought of his daughter.
  Like, motherfucker, how was your child not at the forefront to begin with? If you were prepared to end your own life you were prepared to abandon your child.
  I get it, though. It is sending a good message through a personal story. But it is fucked up, though much like the topic of suicide itself, so it is probably inescapable.
  
  I get it, though. It is sending a good message through a personal story. But it is fucked up, though much like the topic of suicide itself, so it is probably inescapable.
  The message was botched, though. The cartoonist said they can show evidence that "we" (the passive you, whatever) can change our lives, but the only evidence was about themself. I believe they don't know shit about anyone elses life or problems and are falling on survivor bias saying "just do what I did!".
- Wow you weren't kidding. Bunch of depressed commenters with a mentality of "change is hard" makes you understand how they got depressed to begin with.
  
  Depression isn't caused by laziness. There's clinical trials and everything, fascinating stuff if you want to look into it.

It's more true to say that you can't find a better life if you don't continue living. But that's not a guarantee that you can.
- Survivorship bias. In this case also quite literally?
  
  You're not wrong but fuckin hell, that's one way to put it.
- indeed, sometimes your reward for perseverance is more suffering!
- That's the spirit!
  (but you're right of course)
  
  Because of the way comments are ordered, I thought for a second that you were replying to the guy saying "being a ghost might be fun too"
- Being a ghost might be fun too. But I have no rush :)
- I'd go further and say that you can, but might not

I think honestly another way to put it is that pain and suffering are merely unpleasant signals intended to actually prevent you from dying. Death itself is a lovecraftian horror.
I think I'll take the unpleasant signals.
- Death itself is a lovecraftian horror.
  Death is what you make of it.
  
  I'm not sure what you mean. But I suspect that is cope.
- That makes death sound far too attractive.
  
  Are you sure that's not some kind of kink of yours?

Ok so if I can't afford to find even a simple therapist finding a good one lol !
Always those with money giving life advice.
- https://openpathcollective.org/ provides a long list of therapists that work on an affordable, sliding scale
  
  US only and still 30$ to 70$ per session !
- Just take the money from the rich. And if you are hungry eat the rich.
  
  Oo-de-lally!
- They think they have figured out some other secret other than freedom to make mistakes because they have the financial backing to make them is what sets them apart.
  Life is full of people thinking that if other follow their exact steps it will work without realizing the things they have differently, such as money and resources, even just skills or biological quirks, do make quite the difference in being able to followed.
  I'm not against them sharing it worked for them but that's as far as I feel it goes.
  
  Fully agree with this comment. This is why I always tell young people "if you don't know what you want to do, chase money"; because it you find out you want to do something else but you're not rich enough to do it, you're screwed
  
  Life is also full of people thinking that if others followed their exact steps there would be no way they could turn their life around. They're often just as wrong.
  
  Just because the variables are different doesn't mean you can't find a correct answer. There are no two situations that are the exact same. The comic is just a success story for motivation.. is it really that deep? Pessimism must be exhausting.
- There are almost always ways to get help if needed. You just have to want to find it and be willing to accept what help is given.
- The comic reads more like "I had an intrusive thought once, and mistook it for being suicidal".
  ...good thing he alread had friends, a plan, and a therapist... Oh, and a lake to visit regularly at night. Smacks of privilege.
  
  Oh shit blaming the victim
  Now Lemmy is cooking for sure
- Exactly! Pathetic ad disguised as life advice.
  
  Do you see every comic as an ad for the comic?

Sooo.... Pushed a huge reset button on their relationships and...
I still don't get this. This kind of advice doesn't exactly work for anyone but the person speaking. No one can exactly follow the life of another as we are all completely different.
I guess the point that you have some level of free will and can make personal choices is new to some people but that isn't a fix and doesn't really resolve anything for depression.
It's trying a different tactic to handling life but it negates what was causing them misery in the first place. Which is the monotony of life itself to a degree.
This tosses all that in favor of denying finding purpose for just exploding your existence to see if you can build it new in a way that might make you happy but likely will need another reset when it stops working.
I just don't get it.
- I don’t think this is advice as much as it is a story. The advice is “find a better life, whatever that life is.”
  
  That's very much easier said than done. Aa life is often not so easy to find a better version of but more often a different version.
  The advice of stay alive because at least you keep experiencing new things is good advice. Trying for better is a nice idea but a message of do what it takes to make your life "better" is... Fantasy in a way that feels off to me.
  I could tell the story of the night I tried to drown myself and all that changed since then but it wouldn't be better persay. Just changed. The story would sound like meandering prose and little purpose.
  I don't understand the myth of better. It causes misery more in those that do not find it.
- Does everything have to apply 1:1 to your own life for you to be able to take something useful from somebody else's story?
- You're right. But if someone I care about is choosing between suicide and explode their relationships, I hope they choose explode their relationships. I'll be there when they figure out whatever is next. (I know because I have been for someone who did. I'm not delighted with how they handled things, but I'm glad I still have them.)
  
  Oh I am always in favor of life. Suicide is messy, painful and leaves a lot of people with less in their life.
  It's just not a solution as much as a new start point searching for something that doesn't exist and will likely lead you back to having to do it again.
  People can do what they need to or want but I see no comfort for those that follow trying to get a better life. That is why I feel sad seeing people recommending it I guess.
  We don't find utopia on the other side of tomorrow, just more tomorrows.

- Can you elaborate or offer some context?
- Sure, bud