[hackerspaces] Please reach out

[metabaron]

I felt the same 4 times already !! 4 people I knew went that way.
Mitch I'm totally with you on that. 


Le dimanche 20 novembre 2011 à 11:34 -0800, Mitch Altman a écrit :
> I wrote a blog post yesterday that sort of went viral.  The server
> crashed from so much traffic.  Depression is something that a lot of
> us geeks experience.  I thought I would share it on the
> Hackerspaces.org list, too.  If you are depressed or feeling suicidal,
> please know that you are not alone.
> 
>  
> ------------------------------
> 
>  
> For folks who don't know, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the founders of
> Diaspora, committed suicide recently. He was 22 years old.
>  
> Ilya hung out at Noisebridge, and also led workshops and hackathons
> for Diaspora at our space. Most people who met him were quickly taken
> in by his enthusiasm and do-ocratic charisma. I became instant friends
> with him the first day he showed up at Noisebridge shortly after he
> moved to San Francisco last year.
>  
> Hardly anyone had even a clue that Ilya was depressed, let alone
> suicidal. He was bubbly, cheerful, excited about all the way cool
> projects he was implementing, as well as the ones he had thought, and
> would think of.
>  
> Last night was his memorial in San Francisco, followed a party in his
> backyard in the Mission. This party was typical of the epic parties
> Ilya threw in his backyard over the past many months, bringing
> together so many wonderful people -- incredible opportunities to have
> fun meeting and connecting with each other. The only thing atypical
> last night was that Ilya was not there.
>  
> Both the memorial and the party were full of people who knew and loved
> Ilya, and who Ilya knew and loved. Ilya could have reached out to any
> one of us -- any time of day or night. He could have reached out. But
> he didn't.
>  
> For Ilya to have held in and hid his pain so well that all of these
> people, including myself, had no clue -- Ilya must have felt *so*
> alone, *so* isolated, exacerbating his pain too greatly. If he had
> reached out, maybe -- maybe -- he could have lived another day. But he
> didn't.
>  
> I lived the first half of my life in total and utter depression. No
> joy, just shame, just self-loathing, dread and anxiety and fear of
> other people -- total depression. I know what it is like to be
> depressed. I know what it is like to live for one's whole life knowing
> and believing that the best life might have to offer is the ability
> for me to endure the pain till I eventually died. That was the best
> possibility. As with Ilya, I hid all of this from the world as best as
> I could. And most people had no clue I was depressed.
>  
> Yet, I learned, through making choices for myself, and learning from
> the consequences of my choices, and with help and support of others,
> over a period of many years, making more choices, learning, growing,
> crashing, burning, making more choices, more support. . . -- I
> eventually learned to live a life I love. I love the life I live! If I
> could learn to live a life I love, then, certainly, it is possible for
> anyone to do this!
>  
> It is more than possible -- it is way worthwhile, way rewarding, way
> wonderful to go through the experiences of our life -- through the ups
> and the downs, through the all-arounds, and all the pain and suffering
> and joy and love and excitement -- and come to a place where you know
> that the pain, regardless of its intensity, is yet another (perhaps
> seemingly unendurable) experience, which gives way to more of what
> makes life even more worthwhile.
>  
> Depression is an important part of life. Everyone experiences it to
> some extent. But to those of us who know chronic depression, it is our
> own unique hell.
>  
> Unique as it is to each of us, we all share a lot.
>  
> And we all have a lot to share with each other. Through the ups, and
> the downs, the all-arounds.
>  
> For someone who has no experience reaching out, it can seem to be the
> scariest thing possible. But it is possible.
>  
> It is very possible. Ilya is dead. But you -- you are still alive. If
> you are contemplating suicide, please know that you are not alone. You
> are part of a community of others, many of whom know what it is like
> to be hopelessly depressed. Many of whom are more than open for you to
> reach out to (if you only knew!).
>  
> You *can* choose to kill yourself. But it will be your last choice. If
> you are ready to kill yourself, why not try out one choice first? What
> do you have to lose? I know it is scary, and perhaps way shameful, and
> maybe too awful, and extremely difficult -- but, really, what do you
> have to lose? Please know that you *can* choose to reach out to
> someone. Please, know that you can. Please, pick someone and reach
> out.
> 
> Why wait till your pain is so unendurable? You can reach out now.
> (Really, you can.)
>  
> Thanks,
> Mitch.
>  
>  
> [I also posted this to the Noisebridge blog:
> http://blog.noisebridge.net/2011/11/19/please-reach-out/]
>  
>  
> 
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