Excellent response. This really hit home for me. I was diagnosed with clinical depression when I was 12. Even back then I tried to hide it... any time I cut, it was always on my upper legs so no one would see it. As an adult things are better controlled, but there was a period fairly recently where I started hoarding my sleeping pills in case I ever wanted an "out". I was pretending to take them and hiding them from my husband, so that I could use them to overdose, which I tried back in June. I will be open and honest about having depression, mostly because I feel like no one else should have to feel this awful, and if me talking about it helps someone else, then that's a way for me to turn such a negative thing in my life into something positive. But I don't go posting passive-aggressive statuses on Facebook because like you said, it's not for attention. Sometimes I'll post an article about the science behind it, or how exercise helps depression, or something similar, but again, it's more to inform other people. It's definitely not to draw attention to myself. Because yes, having depression sucks - but I don't want pity for it. I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia (by an actual rheumatologist, not Tumblr) about 8 years ago, but I hardly ever talk about that one. Again, the difference between someone who actually has it and a ham is that the person with it is just trying to get through their day, the ham is trying to get as much sympathy and attention as possible, even if it's pity. I hate when hams use fibro as an excuse, because odds are they A) don't even have it, they just self-diagnosed it; and B) the pain they are attributing to fibromyalgia is more than likely their body saying "fuck this shit" because it's carrying around an extra 200 pounds that it doesn't need. One thing I've started doing to weed out the ones that are doing it for sympathy is to ask them what medication they're taking. Especially if it's for a condition that I'm knowledgeable about. It's fun watching them squirm... "oh... uh, well, my doctor hasn't given me any medication yet..." and then I can jump in with, "well if you're in that much pain, you should be on something! You should go see him right away, if you leave it unchecked you could end up with X, Y, Z comorbid problem." It lets them know I know they're bullshitting, without me sounding like an insensitive bitch for accusing them of making things up.