This. Is. Serious.

While blogging on my tumblr (which I have recently deleted), I saw a picture making a joke about suicide.

I was aghast with fear that someone would joke about something that serious. The caption was "everyone has bad days."

Yes, but when you kill yourself it's something deeper than a bad day.

Recently, I have been correcting people when they say: "I want to die" or "My life is horrible, I should just die." This is not the language we need to use to describe our feelings. I will admit, I have caught myself saying this. But I've always tried to say: "I didn't mean to say it like that. My problem is not that serious. Please forgive me for being dramatic."

You do not understand the feeling of being suicidal by just having a bad day, or things not going your way. Suicide is caused by having a disease. This disease takes over your life and sometimes ends it.

Depression is something that everyone deals with from time to time. Major depressive disorder is a severe paralyzing disease, and in some cases fatal. It's good to note that not all who are affected by this disease is suicidal.

By throwing around jokes about suicide and trying to get sympathy from people by saying 'you want to die' in the least serious way, you are taking the attention away from individuals who may be suffering from this condition. And if they were going to try and get help, you just minimized their feelings in to a joke.

Sometimes it's a phase and individuals are able to get over it and move on with their lives. Sometimes it is a lifetime thing and these individuals, no matter how much help they get and how hard they try, they can't get over these feelings.

It's important to be aware. Suicide is not a joke and I will never laugh at it. But I will no longer tolerate the easy-goingness about the topic any longer.