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Particularly family and close friends. I really don't give a damn what one-time acquaintances and Internet handles say, but when people who should know you better don't, that can be severely damaging. Ultimately I think depression is really chronic existential crisis along with alienation, and while I don't preclude treatment with drugs (as there could be associated physiological aspects that can be corrected and normalised), ultimately one has to 'find' the meaning and joy that can get you out of the rut oneself. But its not easy.

Chronic existential crisis can be accidental too. I'm barely out ot a clinical critical one and it was the sum very long time factors that just exploded at the same time in ways that were near impossible for me to predict.

Anyway, drug can be very helpful (coming from someone who refrained to use them) to smooth the bad peaks. It's impossible to fight that.. kinda like a bleeding. Then you can work on other aspects. Also depression has some absurd side, because as long as your brain is tilted nothing works, the day it starts to balance again, for no special reason, you'll start to have mental energy and pleasure you forgot you could have.

...I have to take medication because...of people who seemed to get some sort of perverse pleasure out of making me feel bad...

In my head I boiled your comment down to that, and it hit pretty hard. I have had people encourage me to take anti-depressants because of my reaction to the way they're treating me.

I'm on your "friends" side with family members. You made me reconsider some aspects of the situation.

There's a word for that. Gaslighting.

I think this is 100% spot on correct. Life is damn hard and cruel without our help as it is. We don't need to add to it, and yet we do. Thank you for posting this.

Being able to have a conversation with someone of differing opinion, and keeping it a conversation and not an assault, is immensely valuable for both parties.

>And along comes the internet where anyone is entitled to say anything from a distance and not have to look into the eyes of the human being they're taking a scrap of dignity from.

That's the wonderful thing about the Internet; it's not real life! Personally, I think it's a hoot, but you have to sublimate the pain with humor. :D

If you think insulting people on the internet is fun because "it's not real life" that makes you an asshole.

Don't get me wrong, insulting people in any medium is fun, but it's less fun in real life because

- you're limited to insulting only those in physical proximity, and the logistics of traveling around and repeating insults for greater insult coverage are a hassle,

- your insults are easily traced to your identity, opening the possibility of social or legal consequences,

- and, unlike the Internet, physical harm is an option in real life, which is a very bad consequence!

That's why, for assholes or political dissidents alike, the Internet is so wonderful!

But the internet is real life. It isn't some alternate reality. Your actions online effect real people offline, and they also reflect you. I think a lot of people forget that.

Bring back teaching 'manners and comportment' in schools! Seriously!