Letting The Monster Get Out Of Hand

Reading this: Mens Depression Is Subtle, But It Can Kill

Being a depressed gun owner is another place this can bite you.

The anti-gun groups are practically crawling over each other hoping to get some law, any law, that hands a Doctor, Psychiatrist or Psychologist the decision making power to strip your gun rights from you.

The worry that admitting something to your doctor about being depressed is not aided by medical professional organizations response to this stuff.

There's many cases where the depressed gun owner knows they're depressed (or that clearly something is wrong besides the obvious issues they're excoriating themselves over).

But they avoid treatment out of a, apparently well founded, fear that their doctor cannot be trusted with knowing they're a gun owner.  Or that a diagnosis of depression will cause them to be legally barred from owning their guns.

Then, without treatment, the wheels come off and they do something where they're no longer a living gun owner.

PS:

This is also the kind of situation that terrifies me about drugs like Gabapentin.  You cannot admit to the VA that you might be depressed, because to them all psychological roads lead to the suicide crisis hotline.  Gabapentin is strongly associated with enhancing thoughts of depression and suicide.

So, you tell the VA you're depressed (for whatever reason) and they fucking leap to "MUST BE SUICIDAL" and suddenly you're listed as a danger to yourself and others and BAM!  No more guns for you.

So you don't take the drugs that might help with the pain and can't really articulate to the doctor why.