[[https://www.redox-os.org/news/open-source-mental-health/][Open Source and Mental Health - Redox - Your Next(Gen) OS]]
There are lots of aspects to mental health episodes. On the one hand, there is usually a genetic component to mental illness. On the other, these genetic precursors usually require both chronic and acute environmental triggers. These chronic triggers can be a long-lasting poor home or work environment, and lead to manifestation of the mental illness itself. The acute triggers could be, for example, an argument with someone, leading to a mental illness episode. These episodes can be serious enough to overcome the extreme instinct to survive, leading to suicide.
In this way, suicide is not a display of weakness. In fact, it is a display of extreme conviction and strength. Even with the backdrop of mental illness, there are parts of the brain that are usually unaffected. These parts are so ancient in development, we have little conscious control of them. To attempt suicide requires overcoming conscious desires to survive. To succeed, is to overcome extreme subconscious desires. This means that, for suicide, often the smartest and most capable people are able to succeed.
This anti-selection of capable people is a terrifying epidemic. Humanity in general is in desperate need of artificial solutions to long-standing problems. Take climate change, for instance. Out of the 800,000 people each year who committed suicide, on average perhaps more capable than the rest of us, what if a few would have been instrumental in developing fusion power?
And yet, we as a society have taken the position that these events are an unstoppable force. That the factors leading to suicide are internal, not external. I refuse to believe this, on principle. We must search out causes and mitigate them, for every problem, even if it ends up being impossible.
And so, I am forced to look into my own actions, to see what could have been done differently. To see if I could have saved a life, and to see what lives I can save in the future.