I think I'm going to keep this fairly short. Discussing mental health is always a difficult subject, especially when things are raw. I am glad to see the ever-increasing number of people that agree that our civilization needs to change the way we address mental health issues. There is still a stigma attached to the whole thing, even though we understand that mental health is really just the physical health of your brain.
Frankly, I think people are just intimidated by complexity.
At any rate, probably the easiest first step we could take is to change the way we talk about mental health and death. And lets start by not using the word suicide in a mental health context. I'm not saying there is no such thing as suicide. But if a chronically depressed person ODs on pills or slashes their wrists, they didn't kill themselves.
The depression did.
This is a difficult concept for people who have never experienced depression to grasp. I mean, it's hard for people who have seen it every day of their lives in a loved one to grasp. I still have conversations with my dad about my depression when I'm at low tide, and he'll invariably ask me if I want to talk about something. "What is making you depressed?" he'll ask. And every time, I always have to remind him that it is my fucking brain chemistry that makes me depressed.
Sometimes there are triggers. Sometimes, to be completely honest, there aren't. Not anything I can put my finger on. I'm sure it's different for everybody.
Back to suicide. I'm no saying never use the word again. But I think that in the broader context of discussion about mental health, it's probably better for everybody involved to remind them that these people didn't just lark off and kill themselves.
They had a disease that they fought their entire lives, the best way they knew how, and in the end their disease killed them. They didn't commit suicide.
They lost their fight with depression.