Depression is a Disease-Disease causes Death

In the end, if depression leads anyone from any walk of life to the form of death called suicide the effect is the same as losing someone to any other disease. The problem is after someone as well known as Robin Williams has been gone for awhile we will stop talking about depression, unlike other diseases, mental illness/disease is misunderstood people do not know what to expect.

I hear some people I know saying..."oh jeez, she has turned this tragedy into something about her again, she ALWAYS does this...me, me, me...its all about her", but if I had written about my understanding of why Mr. Williams chose his ending, if I had wrote about his view point that would have been wrong as well by these people, you would hear..."oh jeez, how would she know what a famous actor is going through? How dare she compare herself to someone who has the pressure like Robin Williams did".

Cancer is mutated cells, but depression, mental illness/disease has to do with the brain. Researching and testing on the brain can't be an easy thing to do when a person is alive and after they are gone, how can you tell what is going on?

People can 'fake' mental illness/disease right? People pretend to have a breakdown, people pretend to have a mental illness/disease and people actually believe that we, the mentally ill, do this all the time, we are pretending. We pretend to be sick to get attention, we are "throwing temper tantrums" to get attention. It isn't like cancer, you can't 'fake' cancer. So how do you know when a person is really sick? When they are really going down into a real depression? There are signs, but you have to be informed.

How many of us talk to the loved one that has depression about their depression? How many of us are willing to talk to our loved ones doctors when we see the symptoms of depression? How many of us are willing to take our loved ones to emergency if their loved one stops doing the things they used to do and are always in bed crying and never eating? How many of us are willing to make that call to the police if we think our loved one is in danger of hurting themselves? 

How many of us are willing to sit all night with a loved one...a friend, brother, sister, niece, nephew, uncle, aunt or cousin...anyone who needed us to be that one person to get that person over the hump of a breakdown that could cause you to permanently lose them?

A Great Aunt of mine suffered from depression as well, we used to talk until all hours of the night about our "bad times". It helped talking to an older person who could relate to my fears. She knew what I was feeling when I talked about losing family to this disease. She understood what I meant when I talked about pushing family away, being angry for no reason, crying for no reason, being paranoid for no reason, feeling like no one cared for no reason. I miss having her to talk to.

The mentally ill having each other to talk to is great, we help each other in many ways. Having our family and friends standing beside us,  nonjudgmental and understanding that we are slipping down into a depression when we are always so close to tears, when the little things upset us, when we stop wanting to see them and when we become angry at stupid things, is what can save us in the end.