I have heard many people talk about depression in the almost year since Kody died by suicide and it strikes me that there is so much misunderstanding. People will tell me that they just don’t understand. He seemed so happy they say. He always had a smile on his face. I nod and sympathize, but in my head I am rolling my eyes. People who are depressed can seem happy. They can even be happy. They can be loved and supported and have a community. And they can still die. This is because depression is a disease.

When people think about depression, I think that they are often thinking of the kind of depression present in their own lives. This is a different kind of depression. A more fleeting type. The normal type of depression is a temporary condition. There is some kind of trigger and people are thrown into that darkness for the briefest moment of time. They think that the way that Kody experienced depression was like this and wonder why he couldn’t just pull himself out of it.

The reason is that in Kody’s case it wasn’t a temporary state. Depression is a disease, just like cancer or diabetes. It isn’t something a person can get over by pulling themselves up and forcing a smile. It requires real live medical treatment to add quality of life. In some cases, like Kody’s, it is a terminal illness. When I think about my mother and her dying of cancer I don’t think to myself “why couldn’t she just get over it, she was so loved, she seemed so healthy.” Yet that is a normal statement surrounding death by suicide.

Kody was getting treatment for his disease. He was in therapy. He was on pills. But it wasn’t enough. Just like with my mother’s cancer where chemotherapy, surgery, and auto immune therapy weren’t enough. No one blames my mother for dying of cancer, but there are many who see death by suicide as something shameful. We need to realize that depression is a disease. Just like cancer, the treatment for this disease can be risky. Sometimes chemotherapy works, and sometimes it kills you. How is it so different that sometimes treatment for depression works and other times, pills cause suicidal thoughts to worsen and force people into crisis?

In Kody’s case, he was on a new anxiety med that finally worked on his anxiety. The trouble was, curing the anxiety was actually dangerous in his situation as the anxiety, kept him from completing his suicide attempts in the past. New medication killed Kody, even though he was the one that pulled the trigger. Depression is a disease. Until we realize that, we will keep blaming those who die by suicide. We will keep saying that they were weak or selfish. Depression treatment is dangerous and needs constant monitoring, just like chemotherapy, or insulin therapy, or any other treatment for a dangerous disease. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we will stop blaming those who die by suicide for their own deaths.