Reply to comment

If we want to say that things like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, etc... are "different" than normal human emotions then that means that everything we experience mentally does not lie on a spectrum but that some types of experiences are qualitatively different and not merely of varying intensity. That means that things like depression, schizophrenia, etc... are "wrong" or "malfunctions" and not something that one should expect to find in the spectrum of healthy human experience. 

 I think it is helpful to acknowledge the fact that certain things are just "wrong" with us/or the world but that does not mean we need to start a crusade to eradicate these things. The call to that crusade is what makes people afraid of the idea of eradicating large parts of the spectrum of human mental experience.  Nobody wants that.  So yes, for some people the proper approach is to relieve their suffering asap if possible, for others the only option might be to help them learn to live with it. For others it might be to allow them to suffer even though we could stop it because they are doing something with that situation which is valuable. For example, nobody would stop a mountain-climber who was almost at the top of the mountain because he had a broken arm, cuts, all sorts of injuries. We recognize the value of working through that suffering to reach a goal, so we allow it. 

 I think the reason so many people fear pain and suffering is because they do not recognize its value, all sorts of pain even seemingly hopeless agonizing pain has value. The soldier screaming in pain on the battle field as he lays dying is often shot in the movies to "relieve his suffering" all that does however, is to eliminate the conditions for the possibility of suffering much like medicating ever single ache and pain, thus limiting the spectrum of human experience.  That pain has value even if it is only to serve as an example to his fellow soldiers of how to die with courage.