Title: Hi,<p>TL;DR If Swartz's death is triggering suicidal thoughts, you must understand that this will pass, and life will be worth living.<p>After seeing the impact of Aaron Swartz's death on the Hacker News community, I am concerned about the Werther effect (the tendency of a prominent suicide to trigger other suicides).  I hope I can help by sharing what I learnt through 10+ years of depression and recovery.<p>Depression robs you of the ability to:
1. remember happiness
2. feel happiness
3. anticipate happiness
4. make considered decisions<p>#1-#3 make you miserable, but #4 is the killer.  Bits of your brain actually shut down, and you run on pure emotion.  For example, when I was depressed, I was easy prey for offers like "4 for the price of 3 on this crappy overpriced chocolate" because I couldn't weigh it up.  All I could think was "chocolate: good.  4 for 3: good.  4 for 3 chocolate: irresistible".  But if you're running on pure emotion and your emotions tell you "everything sucks" well ... suicide looks like a good option.<p>So why didn't I kill myself?  Somewhere in my guts, there was a stubborn belief that "this will pass".  You might even call it a sense of entitlement: "come on world -- you can give me something better than this!"  And you know what?  It DID!  Thanks to some wonderful people, and to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I found a way to recover.<p>With the best 10+ years of my life lost to depression, starting from scratch in my 30s has been hard, but it's still a life, and I swear that life is worth more than you can possibly understand when you're depressed.<p>Stay strong,<p>Pitarou
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