It began with a question to psychiatrists and psychologists on a user-generated news site, but morphed into a deep insight into living with mental illness.

News sharing website Reddit is home to some of the most absurd exchanges on the internet but it was a serious discussion on wellbeing that piqued the interest of more than 7300 people in the past three days.

Reddit user theone1221 posted the question: “Psychiatrists/psychologists of Reddit, what is the most profound or insightful thing you have ever heard from a patient with a mental illness?”

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It spawned thousands of responses, and a shrewd analysis of living with a mental illness, straight from the experts themselves.

Responses included:

x87Owen – “Imagine if every small decision felt like it had life or death consequences.” Describing living with an anxiety disorder.

rbaltimore – “I want to kill myself but I don’t want to die.” Believe it or not, those are two different things.

UnidentifiableReason – “It doesn’t take talent to practice.” Therapist here, I was working with a defiant teenager and sports was his only outlet. He had big dreams of being in a professional league but knew he was horrible at it. I thought his statement was really inspiring. I think about it often when trying new things.

phatzdomino – “She forgot to bring my headphones and I’m the one who’s crazy!” Yelled by a psych ward patient at the end of visiting hours. His wife brought him an iPod and forgot the headphones. Everyone laughed – patients, visitors, staff. The goodbyes that night were a little less sad for a change.

Jagerboi11 – A patient recovering from body image issues told me “we spend our whole lives trying to get to a certain place or acquire certain things so that we may be happy. But true happiness is when you realise you are never going to get to that place or that even when you do you will still be dreaming of a new place or new things. So happiness has to start now, with what we have”. Basically sums up the whole message of therapy for me to be honest.

MedicUp – I was rotating through an inpatient psychiatric facility, and had a patient who was having a severe manic episode. He would ramble on topics about the occult and conspiracy organisations like the Illuminati. But then told me, “You know, those things are real right? They have TV shows about them.”

And then I realised that some of those ridiculous Discovery and History Channel TV specials were probably validating some of the psychosis our patients had.

GhostLinz – “My face hurts.” Six year old autistic girl, trying to explain that her feelings were hurt. That’s where she associates feelings. The things that show on people’s faces.

Anyone who might be feelings symptoms of depression, anxiety or mental illness should contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 224 636.