Suicide is widely looked upon as a cowardly and selfish act, but unless one has been at the brink of despair one can never understand that to the ‘would be suicide’ this notion is usually farthest from their mind. If you have ever been fortunate to suffer from depression only then will you be able to appreciate the difference between feeling ‘sad’ and feeling ‘despair’.  The two emotions are completely different.  It is this feeling of despair that pushes a would be suicide to take the final heroic plunge and commit the act.  For most suicides resulting from depression the angish of living is better soothed by death’s cool balm. At the point of taking one’s life one believes it is a selfless act, the only and best option for everyone involved. When we hear about suicides committed by people suffering from depression let us take a pause to admire their strengths not condemn them, after all according to Gene and Barbara Stanford in their book titled “Strangers to themselves”; “the difference between the mentally ill and the mentally well is just a matter of degree”.