South Dakota -- Happier Than Hawaii!

...so what's with all the suicides and binge-drinking?

Yes, yes, the Madville Times spends a lot of time complaining. Given the focus these pages give to South Dakota's problems, you might get the impression that the Sunshine State is a pretty depressing place to live.

Ah, those deceptive appearances. For all the complaints I post here, I swear, I'm a really happy guy. I wake up to a beautiful theologian, a ticklish baby. And a new study by Mental Health America and Thomson Healthcare (reported by KELO) says the whole darn state of South Dakota shares my overflowing happiness. Evidently South Dakota has the lowest rate of depression in the country. We are happier than Hawaii (77 degrees today, but raining straight through the weekend -- I'll take that snowstorm over rain any day!). Utah is the most depressed state in the nation (as good neighbors, we should probably elect Romney, so those Utah folks cheer up).

This research makes Mrs. Madville Times and me scratch our blogging heads this morning. (Madville Times Jr. is too busy coloring to ponder such issues.) We've mused previously that with all the binge-drinking and drug abuse that goes on, among young and old alike, that folks around here must be depressed about something. This very study also notes that South Dakota has the 11th highest suicide rate in the nation, with 14.85 suicides per 100,000 people. The places with the least suicide: DC, New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. The big city can drive a person crazy, but if you look at the suicide rankings for South Dakota and some of the places with worse rates -- Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and the suicide leader, Alaska -- it appears that it's those wide open spaces that can push a person over the edge.

For me, South Dakota is the happiest in the world. I have never felt happier or more fulfilled anywhere else. And I want to believe that depression is just an aberration, a big-city malady easily cured by healthy South Dakota living.

But maybe that's the problem. Maybe what I believe is like what a lot of us believe, and we fail to recognize and deal with depression when it happens. Maybe (I checked the study methodology and can't be sure) South Dakota's low depression rate is just an artifact of South Dakotans not 'fessing up in the surveys. Depression doesn't fit with our ethos, so we don't talk about it. We bottle it up, or try to solve it with a bottle. And when that doesn't work....

Could isolation be the problem? Remember those wide open spaces I mentioned -- they may be as much psychological as geographical. Maybe that's one more reason to talk more, to be more open with each other, to say what we're thinking instead of keeping it to ourselves. It make us even happier... and it might help our friends realize they aren't alone and choose to stick it out for another day, and another, and another....