Anyone else agree?

Well a few things to consider... success is relative. One expects a rich wealthy person to have kids who will go to yale and become lawyers and eventually judges. That is success in that world, because it can easily be obtained when you have money and the right connections.
For someone who has a mental issue, maintaining a regular job and being independent is a success because it takes so much effort to be act like a normal guy/gal. Success should be measured not in how much you achieve but in what you went through to get there, imho.
As for people with psychiatric diagnoses... Speaking from personal experience, I alaways have people tell me I am not reaching my potential. I should be doing more with my life. I am very intelligent, capable, likeable, and could do soo much more with my life.
Then they find out I have a diagnosis, and they flee. They don't really want me to be in a workplace with them. They don't want me to be around them, then they blame me for not melding into a society that does not want me So I think in the case of people with mental issues, victim blaming makes society feel better about itself at large. If it is our fault, it is not their fault, after they try to encourage us by telling us about our potential, etc... so we bring the giref on oursevles and the peopel who are scared of us are absolved.

I'd like to share with you a quote (a song lyric, actually) that always makes me feel better whenever I am feeling depressed. Hopefully it will help you, too:

When you're close to tears, remember: someday it'll all be over.

"An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some, who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself." - Epictetus - Enchiridion

“I guess that it is all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps”. -Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Like!" - last 2 posts

ladyjello wrote:"Like!" - last 2 posts

And your post on page 1 reminded me of this one: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Some great posts in this thread.

Recently I watched a Jim Jefferies stand-up comedy show. He said we're all depressed in the western world because we're brought up on dreams. You can do whatever you want to.. (typing that sentence made me realise how stupid it is. For example, I want super powers, but it ain't gonna happen). When your dreams don't come true you're miserable. Whereas for poor developing world people, their dream is just to stay alive for the rest of the day. Jim achieved many goals but he still gets miserable because he hasn't achieved even more. This is all a lot funnier if you see the stand-up...

I was reading about introverts and extroverts in Carl Jung's Psychological Types. He said the western world only really values extroversion. Only observable, tangible achievements in the physical world are recognised. But the introvert achieves things in his own mind, and produces intangible results in other people.