A few weeks ago, Alice Wong asked me, a fellow person living with a progressive neuromuscular disease (NMD), how I would respond to someone with an NMD who was saying they wanted to commit suicide.  This was my answer.

Depression is not a standard feature of living with a neuromuscular disease (NMD) or other progressive disability.

Do people living with disabilities also experience depression? Yes. Anyone can have depression and you are no different in deserving treatment and relief for it. Thinking that you alone can help yourself with your depression through suicide is a tragic form of “overcoming.”

If finding the right treatment for your depression proves difficult, it’s not proof that your disability makes you different from other people.

It’s not proof that, for you, suicide is a rational choice. No. It’s proof that depression is difficult to treat for vast numbers of people. Like you.

It’s free and confidential to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline anytime. You are not a medical prognosis or a checklist of functional abilities. You’re a person. Who is in terrible pain now and deserves relief.

If you’re in crisis: