Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

evanmrose.tumblr.com

11–20 of 248 posts

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#11
I would start out by saying there's a stigma around mental illness and that it's not a "real" illness and that it's "all in the head therefore not real".

It is exactly this type of attitude we have had since the dark ages that much development of treatment and studies are now only beginning to take more shape.

We have to have a much wider awareness of mental illness and how it affects the basic human rights.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#12

I can only sympathize with what Evan and Stephen went through. We must break the stigma against mental illness. It is far too wide reaching and impactful not to be at the forefront of technology innovation and health research. I challenge new startups to start attacking depression and anxiety disorders. The best solution to depression is often simply finding what works for you through trial and error of available opt…

notify me when you find a solution.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#16
> he did all the things he was supposed to do to get help in a moment of crisis - made multiple calls to his care providers, to 911 and even went to the hospital.  He had been experiencing symptoms for several years but was in a highly-respected treatment program that was working intimately with him.

So in other words, conventional psychiatry failed. And the author's solution seems to be to spread it more.

Maybe after a failure like this, where we see that the care providers, hospital and "highly-respected treatment program" don't work, it's time to stop respecting that treatment program so much and consider different approaches.

http://www.szasz.com

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#17

I can only sympathize with what Evan and Stephen went through. We must break the stigma against mental illness. It is far too wide reaching and impactful not to be at the forefront of technology innovation and health research. I challenge new startups to start attacking depression and anxiety disorders. The best solution to depression is often simply finding what works for you through trial and error of available opt…

> We must break the stigma against mental illness

How? People are labelled mentally ill IFF they do things that have a stigma attached.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#18
post #5

Care to say what was his actual problem was? And how did he passed out?

Yea, I feel that's kind of important to the whole thing. Talk about what the illness was, not about the person. For all I know it could be anything from autophagia to trichotillomania.

While it's a tragic loss, it's purpose is moot because many people read the entire thing and still don't know what his symptoms were. If you want to desensitize the discussion about mental illness, you need to expose the underlying conditions and make people aware.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#19

I can only sympathize with what Evan and Stephen went through. We must break the stigma against mental illness. It is far too wide reaching and impactful not to be at the forefront of technology innovation and health research. I challenge new startups to start attacking depression and anxiety disorders. The best solution to depression is often simply finding what works for you through trial and error of available opt…

> We must break the stigma against mental illness How? People are labelled mentally ill IFF they do things that have a stigma attached.

I don't believe that's true. There are plenty of mentally ill people (depression, anxiety, bi-polar) that act completely normal like Stephen. They often suffer in silence.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#20
I'm sorry for your loss. I lost my son to suicide in 2009. He was brilliant, very sociable, very mature and he too struggled with mental illness. Today I know a lot more about the subject and I'm trying to help preventing more suicides from happening and mental health from being poorly diagnosed and treated. Right now I'm working on a project to develop apps for smart devices that can help people at risk of suicide. If anyone wants to help, please, contact me.
Post reply on HN