Suicide doesn't usually happen when people are depressed. It happens when they're going into or out of a depression. Think of depression as night; suicide usual

Suicide doesn't usually happen when people are depressed. It happens when they're going into or out of a depression. Think of depression as night; suicide usually happens at evening or morning twilight. More often, the morning twilight. They're getting out of depression, can see the big picture again (when you're depressed, you can't) and realize what a mess their lives are in. They freak out, for lack of a better word. They're not in the throes of depression, but still emotionally unstable. That is when suicide tends to happen. Society makes it worse by kicking such people when they're down and making it a lot harder for people to pull themselves out of depression and get the recovery they need. For example, when I missed a midterm exam because I was in the hospital after my suicide attempt, my professor did not allow me to make it up. See, it's shit like that. One period of illness and now you're playing for a D+. One slip and your life just might be fucked. Ok, and here's why this will never improve in American society. We run this contest of superficial reliability at relatively easy (intellectually speaking) work, and our corporate overlords are selected based on who drops last. Usually, the culling agent is a short-term episode of anxiety or depression (or "burn out") in a normal person. They're considered "the weak" and pushed aside. That is why our society cannot, on the terms it lives by now, ever accommodate these genuine (and serious) medical problems. As it's structured now, society is more about competing for position than excellence, and the result of that is that people have to be kicked when they're down. I would argue for scrapping the whole thing (society, that is), rethinking all assumptions, and gearing our society toward genuine excellence (and toward helping the sick, unconditionally) rather than mindless, senseless competition... but that's just me.