I can't see why people automatically assume that the poster of such threads are winding them up. They may be, they may not, who cares? Perhaps someone else reading through who was feeling similar might have taken comfort from others stories so to me, i can't see the problem. If it helped just 1 other person then some good came from it.
There are a lot of very depressed people in this world and i think that to come onto an anonymous website such as this and post your feelings is not that much of a ridiculous idea. Often just getting stuff written down when you're feeling this way can be an enormous help.
I think in situations such as this, we must remember that we all deal with things differently, where one person finds the idea of posting in this frame of mind ridiculous, another can see that this is perhaps how they would do things.
I can see someone in this state of mind maybe hoping for some kind words in their hour of need, whether they are serious or just making a cry for help, i don't see that some of the comments made on that thread last night were necessary in the slightest.
So what if it was a wind up, ya know, even if listening to some other peoples stories helped someone out there deal with some stuff then is it such a bad thing ?
Quite sad to see what that thread descended into if it was genuine.