Depression Survivors Network Launches

A few days ago, writer David Foster Wallace committed suicide. He was my age. Newsweek's David Gates noted that Wallace's brilliant writing was filled with signs of despair as he "wrestled with a terrible master inside his own head."

According to Suicide.org, research shows that more than 90 percent of people who die from suicide have an underlying, although not always diagnosed, psychiatric illness at the time of their deaths. And the most common mental illness is depression.

David Foster Wallace's father said that his son had suffered from depression for many years and had stopped taking his medication just prior to taking his own life. Wallace had been heavily depressed for a number of months and "just couldn't stand it any more." His suicide reminds us of the great losses brought about by the disease. Many mourn his death.

"The world of literature lost one of its smartest and most creative minds to the ugly beast that is depression," wrote Gary Smith of the Baltimore Sun. Tragically, it happened in the same week Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young was told by pundits and radio callers to "suck it up" and "man up" to get over his depression issues after it was disclosed that Young had contemplated suicide. "The entire (Young) episode made me incredibly sad," writes Smith. "Because it reflected how ignorant and macho so many of us are about mental health in this country."

Those of us lucky enough to have been treated successfully for depression need to talk about, write about and blog about depression in such a way that we stand up against that ignorance. All across the internet, people pour out their difficulties with depression, disclosing how it ruins lives and livelihoods. I hope that this blog, this one very, very small part of the internet can do something different. We need to tell our tales of surviving depression; to tell about suicides that didn't happen. Cancer survivors are known by their courage and pink ribbons. Perhaps we depression survivors can be known by our courage and by the stories we share.