[downerending]

It's a truism in life that most people offering simplistic advice don't have long and deep personal experience of the malady they're advising on. None of us can guess about your experience personally, but that's the broad trend across large groups.

A lot of anti-suicide advice can seem like a sick joke, little more than empty virtue signaling. Want to really help? Offer a friendly ear and a sense that you really care about the person in question, and stand behind that over a period of time.

Being depressed is generally not a temporary problem. Many of us have suffered it for decades. It may wax and wane, but it's often not something that just goes away. In my opinion, it's something that many of us simply have to learn to live with, as with so many other chronic diseases.