Making it known that you have a mental illness is simply not the same as having a physical handicap (please note I am not trying to downplay the pains of physical handicap or any other illnesses). People simply do not know how to react to mental illness. Or they’re incapable of understanding. Many people would like to help their friends in these situations but without proper understanding, it’s arguably worse than being a bystander. Comments like “cheer up!”, “just get over it!”, “it’s not that bad” often are not that helpful at all. Even if their struggles seem reasonable to an outsider, the pain that the sufferer feels is very real, and to them, insurmountable. Never mind the fact that the social stigma often means speaking up about these issues means social or professional suicide, resulting in most of us not speaking out about it and feeling hopeless.
Posts about mental health show up on the HN frontpage every once in a while (or more frequently, in /ask), which is a step forward because there is simply not enough awareness on these issues that are so prevalent, especially among the HN demographics. But we still have a lot of work to do.
Side note: Greg Baugues started a community called devpressed[1] for developers struggling with mental illness a while back, and also gave a talk on the topic[2]