An interesting perspective on suicide

I came across these words on suicide and depression some time back.  I have had this in drafts for a while and I am sorry but I cannot quote the source which I forgot to note. An important point is being made here:

… just as a Pulmonary Embolism is a fatal symptom of cancer, suicide is a fatal symptom of depression. Depression is an illness, not a choice of lifestyle. You can’t just “cheer up” with depression, just as you can’t choose not to have cancer. When someone commits suicide as a result of depression, they die from depression – an illness that kills millions each year.

It is hard to know exactly how many people actually die from depression each year because the figures and statistics only seem to show how many people die from “suicide” each year (and you don’t necessarily have to suffer depression to commit suicide, it’s usually just implied). But considering that one person commits suicide every 14 minutes in the US alone, we clearly need to do more to battle this illness, and the stigmas that continue to surround it. Perhaps depression might lose some its “it was his own fault” stigma, if we start focussing on the illness, rather than the symptom.