> <i>First of all, not sure I would call depression mental illness. In fact, I am offended by the word. It’s like saying that having a fever when you get a cold is having a muscle illness. I think the majority of people out there are depressed at some point and have no idea because society deems depression as a “mental illness” and therefore as something foreign and strange that only mentally ill people have. Key to addressing this ever growing phenomenon, especially in today’s social networking age that the tech community has helped bring about, is to accept it as a natural consequence of life and address it as such.</i><p>Founder 2 is dangerously wrong. This person shows the fundamental misunderstanding of mental illness and turns it into a shameful thing -- <i>mental illness is for crazy people!</i>. Brain:body :: mental illness:physical illness.<p>Further, he dismisses depression as "a natural consequence of life," which is one step from saying "everyone feels sad sometimes, get over it."<p>People find it so difficult to get treatment for depression, which is absurd to me. If your arm gets broken, you don't "suck it up" and say "that's life", you go to a doctor and get treated. It's no different when your brain gets broken.
At first glance at the title I thought this was going to be quotes from Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Sam Adams, John Hancock and so on about how to cope with depression.<p>That would've been great. I still think it's a good idea for an article.
For any of those needing help or looking for advice, there's a community for developers called DevPressed (<a href="http://devpressed.com/" rel="nofollow">http://devpressed.com/</a>).
I'm not a founder, just a techie with mild depressive tendencies. I think the advice to talk to someone when you feel it coming on is the best - if you talk to someone about the specific things bothering you, it can help avoid the scenario where the things loom so large in your mind that you can't get past them. Talking about problems somehow brings them back down to human scale and can help you realize how much you've built them up in your head. It's remarkable the number of times in my life that I have dreaded something that ended up being totally not that big a deal.