I don't think most people are capable of engaging with you with the level of self-awareness needed not to penalize you for being open with them about your histo

I don't think most people are capable of engaging with you with the level of self-awareness needed not to penalize you for being open with them about your history of suicidal thoughts. So you may be better to simply come up with something to paper over the gap: plenty of people travel the world and take a few years off teaching english or trying to start a business. I think you'll be penalized for not fitting people's ideals of what they are looking for (recent college grad, cs degree, etc.), but if you're open about the fact that you're switching focus to more technical work, I don't think you'll be penalized EXTRA simply because your work history is not easily traceable for the past two or three years.