I don't know what to title this

I was planning for my blog post to be something about toxicity or what I thought about all the NA teams. However, that doesn't seem to be what's on my mind. This post is because of all that has been happening concerning Gosu but won't necessarily be about him. I'm not sure this quite qualifies as being about League of Legends either but it felt the appropriate place to write about it at this time due to everything that has gone down the past 2-3 days in the community.

In short, this blog post is going to be about mental illness, depression and suicide. This is your trigger warning. I'm not sure if I will say anything triggering but these are the topics that will be written about. This will probably be a bit train of thought and honestly I'm not sure how long or short it will be or if it will make any sense. I definitely will appreciate anyone who reads it.

I suppose one of the biggest things that stand out to me in this whole situation is that people (suicidal people included) would indicate that suicide is selfish. I feel like this is a wholly false idea. Suicide very often is after a long and/or intense battle with some form of mental or physical illness. Suicide that is the result of depression is a side effect of a horrible disease that invades every part of your life and suffocates your soul.

We don't judge people who have cancer and die from it. Why should we be judging people who have depression for dying from it? Isn't a withering of the mind and soul just as horrible if not worse than the withering of a body? Depression can be beaten, cancer can be beaten. Not all can beat it. It's not just "do this" or "take this" to make it better. That doesn't always work. People have the right to choose their own dignity. Suicide is a lot of things but selfish isn't one of them.

There's also been a lot of people who accuse other's of saying the "wrong" or "worst" things. And given there are a lot of things that aren't great to say but sometimes I think the intention means more. It probably is bad to say "get over it" but saying something like "it's not worth it" after commiserating that you have had your own dark time is to let them know they're not alone that there could be a light at the end of the tunnel. Is it the best way? Will it help? Probably not but it's not particularly harmful.

I think the worst thing that people do is degrade or devalue the things that are felt though. To tell someone why they shouldn't feel a certain way, to tell them that how they feel is wrong... that's actually the worst way to help anyone I feel like. Depression can't be dispelled by logic and reason. Depression is something you have to acknowledge. It's something you fight every day but just realizing hey i have a lot of friends isn't going to make it go away. Medicine doesn't always make it go away either.

Maybe it gets better if you can survive but maybe it doesn't. All you can do is be there for the people around you. Don't guilt them for their illness if they're depressed. Don't try and "fix" them. Just be there...

1 (800) 273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org