Before 2021, I genuinely believed that depression was a rich man’s disease. I grew up thinking that my background had made me tough, that the struggles I had been through had built a kind of armour around me that meant I could never experience something like depression or suicidal thoughts. So when I heard about people dying by suicide, my first thought was that they must have been wealthy, comfortable people with too much time to think. I said this out loud. I agreed with others who said the same thing. And I was wrong.

Thinking about it today, I feel for my younger self not with shame, but with understanding. I was not taught about mental health. It was never discussed at home, never brought up in school, never part of any conversation I was included in. And if that was my experience, I have to ask how many people are still where I was? How many people are still calling it a rich man’s disease? How many of us are still saying “committed suicide” instead of “died by suicide?” That small difference in language matters more than most people realise. Saying someone “committed” suicide treats it like a crime. Saying someone “died by suicide” treats it like what it is a death that could have been prevented with the right support and awareness. This article is about that awareness. It is about helping each other understand what mental health really is, and why it belongs to all of us.