It's hard for me to picture someone who has never dealt with suicidal thoughts, since most of my friends have gone through a lot and many of them have diagnosed depression. I've also realized that people from my generation seems to have depression and anxiety in common, I see it everywhere. I've written before about people that I knew who committed suicide, and I have struggled with those ideas in the past, many times, actually.
Recently, I went to see a therapist because I became very afraid of not being able to handle it myself anymore, because I know I'm very strong, even when I feel like I'm not but this isn't about being strong or brave; being strong has nothing to do with not being able to go out and talk to the people I love for the last 3 days. Suicidal thoughts don't get only inside "weak" people's minds (whatever is your definition of "weak", since that's also very subjective), you see, when I'm suicidal I know I have reasons to keep living, I know my dad loves me as much as the rest of the family and friends I have; I know I could have a great life and there many things that I'd like to do before I die, but depression doesn't make sense and do you know why? because it's an illness. A mental illness doesn't need to be reasonable at all, if I were able to convince the chemicals in my brain of the things the logical part of me already knows, I wouldn't even need therapy, it probably wouldn't be considered an illness, but a dumb choice.
I think the part that pisses me off the most about this, is that there are people putting energy into criticizing these poor souls who couldn't help committing suicide like they are the filthiest beings in the world, instead of focusing on why so many people have depression and how to make it better, how to help friends, family, or even ourselves. Just because someone can handle depression and stay alive by focusing on the rational side, it doesn't mean that everyone else can do it that way. There are many types of depression and every single head works differently. For some of us, asking for help takes many years, while for others asking for help is the easiest part. Even with help, I'm pretty sure it's a hard, long journey in most of the cases.
How about we learn from this very sad situation and help each other? Let's have some mercy and empathy and if you can't, keep it to yourself, nobody needs to be put down like that.
