Startup founder reportedly jumped to her death from the top of NYC rooftop bar

Part of the stigma is the sheer number of well-meaning but unhelpful therapists. I went to several free and religious counselors when I was young, and had several worthless experiences.

Most of them just wanted to hear what I had to say, and had no advice, as though hearing myself talk about my problems would solve them automatically. A few gave suggestions but not things that would realistically help (Maybe you should try to be more social, to deal with your depression). Some put me into group therapy with people whose problems were much worse than mine, and this gave me the sense that my problems were small and not worth their time.

Having people goto therapy sounds nice in practice. In reality there are more problems in attending therapy than it promises to resolve, so you're likely to have even more problems than you started with.

And also depression itself. I am talking about customers and partners etc obviously.

This was phrased really well in the movie/article, worth looking up:

> “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable — except for having just jumped."

I was reminded of the same thing and got a few sentences into my reply before noticing yours. Here's a link to a study I had turned up as well:

http://seattlefriends.org/files/seiden_study.pdf

Here's the article in question.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/jumpers

Another powerful quote: "The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, ‘I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’"

Suicide is also about more than just a failed startup. You don't kill yourself because your company failed; there were likely other issues such as depression that she was unable to overcome, though a struggling business doesn't help. If you're depressed, accepting yourself is hard even if you're winning.

Well yes. We know. That's why it's tragic, horrible, and evil when someone is in such pain that they need to commit suicide. It's a blow for Pain over Joy, and for Despair over Hope, and a life destroyed to make that blow permanent.

Thanks for that. I heard about the documentary months ago and was meaning to watch it.

This ^ 100% agree!

I agree with you. In the end these are just words and these are inefficient tools for the task. But as opposed to being a call to action, it's purpose is provide a supportive thought.

I understand it as "I know the situation is hard, but try to keep your head up (don't do anything extreme) because things will get better if you fight for it"

I agree completely. It presupposes that you're already strong and doesn't help you when you're not strong, so it ignores the real troubled time.

Everyone goes through troubled times at least 10% of the time. (yes, that's 4 hours of a typical work week) Learning to handle those is very tough, but achievable. If the best you can do is tread water until it passes, that's good enough.

And it's also okay for people to see us in our non-optimal states. It humanizes us to one another and actually makes us trust each other more than it "tarnishes" our reputation of excellence.

>Not trying to criticize here, but i've never cared for the term "stay strong" it's like telling someone who's depressed to "just be happy".

Just as most people aren't depressed and thus can influence their own happiness and can take responsibility for their own emotions (depression is a disease which robs a person of this control), I believe most of us are responsible for our willpower and strength.

Through meditation, or reflection, or any number of ways, we can center ourselves, we can strengthen ourselves, we can be better.

I understand that if you have a disease like depression you cannot take control of your happiness, but that doesn't absolve the rest of us of our responsibility for both mental health and physical health.

Just as we work out our bodies we must "work out" our minds, and stay strong is a message to the 95% of us who have control of ourselves to stay on our path to mental and physical health and the benefits it provides.

"stay strong"

People typically use the phrase when they really don't know what else to say. For the most part, its not to be mean or just tell you to be normal, its they don't know the words to say since they have never had to deal with a clinically depressed person is going through. You can rage at them, but it won't help either person.

We don't deal well with mental health in the US. There is a political legacy from both parties and their interactions, and when an event comes along that is clearly a mental health issue we blame some inconsequential symbol to fight as opposed to doing the hard work. I get the feeling living in a hashtag-protest world is not going to improve the situation for mental health issues.

You're making a fair point--and feeling like you have everything on the line at every step is most likely going to ramp up someone's level of anxiety and stress with all the negative impacts that entails. However, I also think there is a counterbalancing point that framing life as an all-encompassing economic gamble actually reinforces that anxiety and stress by making it seem like economics is the whole of existence--and for folks who are feeling overwhelmed by feeling like their failure or success hangs in the balance it is likely to drown out a more healthy counter-narrative which is that you're probably not "ruined" if you fail. It'll suck (believe me I'm still paying shitloads of student loans for a career I quit almost a decade ago), but you can still have friends and community and value things in life that aren't work or career. People who are at the point of attempting suicide have drowned out all those positives with a tunnel vision on the pressure of success/failure that is blinding them to other possibilities (see comments above about people who survived jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge).

So yeah, the economics of operating without the feeling of a safety net sucks, but people who are starting to crumble under that safety net need to hear that the safety net isn't just their runway, it's also all the family and friends and life that they have or can build. Unfortunately in this particular case it sounds like she was in a transition and didn't quite have those solidly in place yet.