Reply #42: My guess is that ...

[Kailassa]

having people within it who carry this gene will make a society more resiliant and likely to survive as a whole, as these people are more likely to have empathy for others, and help to hold society together.

I've got a story to tell about depression, that only a person who has experienced it would find funny.

I was on my way to church, walking on my own, when the blackness hit me and the tears started. It does that to me, no warning, just suddenly I'm mentally in agony and feel a desperate need to kill myself, and my eyes just won't stop their darned leaking. All the hatred I encountered as a child seems to materialize into black devils that hammer away at my brain with thumbscrews and acid. I figured though I could just sit quietly in the back row and snuck out quietly before other people were leaving, and so not have to encounter people while I was in that state.

So there I was, back row, all by myself, thinking I was safe, when the over-observant preacher looked up in the middle of his sermon. "Oh, look, everybody, poor Carol is crying! Lets all come and give her a hug to make her feel better." I could have killed the beast for drawing peoples' attention to me like that. And all these nice Christian ladies, whose feelings I did not want to hurt, started crowding around, wanting to hug me ... and I could not bear the idea of being touched. So I backed down the seat, and told them I had a bad case of chicken-pox.

I tried to leave early, but the Sunday-school kids came pouring into the church, and I couldn't escape, then these innocent country folk put on their sheep-dog act, and I was herded into the hall to have "a nice little cup of tea and a cry on a shoulder," which they were sure would make everything alright again. While in my head I could not stop scenes flashing past of my parents trying to kill me and worse, that a younger me had once lived through.

Well, ok, I guess it's not really a funny story, but it makes me laugh, these kind hearted people innocently being such bastards. It is so easy for our best efforts to help to be severely misguided.

These days, btw, I take prozac off and on, and it takes the edge off such times.