attackfish

I heard from a Catholic friend that the Catholic church also takes this position with suicide--that the deceased succumbed to a disease. Most people who haven't been depressed, or have only been situationally depressed, can't fathom the idea of being pulled down relentlessly by a sadness that has nothing to do with what's going on in their lives. It's a transitional step while the scientific understanding of mental states and mental illness saturates through the public, I guess.