news for John Kirwan....

hi JK.
I used to like watching you play rugger.
you were no good till someone hit you then it was all on.
hehehehehehehehehe.
however you know jack about depression and suicide.
If you did then you would not draw silly anologies about illness and presume to think that talking about it is some sort of prophylactic.
Talking is something that ignorant kiwis are very good at but actually seeking to go to the root of the problem seems to be just too difficult.
You should read "Man Against Himself" by Karl Menninger and then you will know what the real story is.
Suicide in New Zealand is rapidly approaching the status of a social distress syndrome and until that is recognised then it will only get worse.
dig?

Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.

What's done to children, they will do to society.

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.

Set up as an ideal the facing of reality as honestly and as cheerfully as possible.

Hope is a necessity for normal life and the major weapon against the suicide impulse.

Self-love is not opposed to the love of other people. You cannot really love yourself and do yourself a favor without doing people a favor, and vise versa.

People repeat in adult life emotions they experience in childhood. Many of the people whom I spent the last 30 or 40 years treating at so much per minute wouldn't have needed any treatment at all if they had had the right care as children.

Karl A. Menninger