I'm Wil Wheaton. I Live with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. I Am Not Ashamed
This article strikes me as partially honest and raw and then the other to be very planned and calculated.<p>Let&#x27;s get this out now: I&#x27;m glad he finally sought help, and that he&#x27;s getting it.<p>The things about this article that bug me:<p>1. He starts off with the article with a &quot;trigger warning.&quot; The title is about depression and anxiety. Having a &#x27;trigger warning&#x27; is either insulting to the reader, or it&#x27;s a weird posturing thing. Seems a little offputting when he&#x27;s trying to write about his own experience and then in a way has to apologize for it.<p>2. He talks about his huge accomplishments and then he discounts himself due to his &#x27;identity&#x27;: &quot; I have run out of space in my office for the awards I’ve received for my work, and as a white, heterosexual, cisgender man in America, I live life on the lowest difficulty setting — with the Celebrity cheat enabled.&quot; (Why is that even important to talk about your sexuality, race, or even standing... if he&#x27;s trying to do a raw and honest appeal this seems a little off to me) This topic has nothing to do with those categories. Leave it for a later addressing of remarks to discredit due to those attributes (this is an issue that can affect anyone, even Trump, [insert who you hate])<p>&gt; My life is, by every objective measurement, very very good.<p>Clearly not if you&#x27;re suffering.<p>3. The apology to his mother. Again why is he apologizing for what he&#x27;s going for? This to me seems like: 1. an improper sharing of a message to a close family member 2. a projection of his relationship to his mother, etc. This just seems really weird with respect of the audience of the talk.<p>EDIT: If you want to communicate how it&#x27;s affected people close to you.. tell the audience. I spoke with my mother on this. Her concerns were x,y,z. That would give the audience a template of how to do the same if they feel it&#x27;s needed.<p>4. The ending which he&#x27;s trying to become an activist. He&#x27;s trying to call for political influence and then trying to endorse organizations.<p>At the end of this, I&#x27;m left wondering:<p>Why did he write this?<p>What does this piece mean? It goes from being very personal and revealing to impersonal and political&#x2F;advocating. Why not split both of those up. Let the next question be: &quot;How can we address that? Give the audience a way to say &quot;I&#x27;m seeing these things.. what can I do?&quot;<p>Is this a vehicle for him to talk about &quot;change&quot; he wants to see?