Someone commented earlier on the link between creativity and emotionality - what more evidence do you need than this forum? I don't find this surprising personally, as I believe the artistic mind is, in some real sense, like a child's mind. This may sound insulting to some, but I mean quite the opposite, for as Kafka said, "Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see Beauty". By virtue of this same heightened sensitivity, youth also experiences great unhappiness.
I think it is a truism that most adults forget what it is like to be a child, and hence lose their youthful temperaments, sensitivity to both the good and the bad in life - and consequently lose much of their humanity. With such pressure on everyone to "grow up" , the very joy of existence is sometimes beaten out of people. So to those of you who experience both high highs and low lows in life, do not take this for granted, and please remember that it IS a virtue. Only when it gets out of control might it be considered a bi-polar disorder; there is no dichotomy. Counselling and medication may be necessary to control very extreme emotional states.
Unfortunately death can be a very appealing method of dealing with these low states, especially in these people I have described - the children at heart. I think most of the time death is seen as rather romantic to the sensitive person, for a couple of reasons. Some may view suicide as martyrdom - that their death will draw the sympathy of others, who will be made to feel guilty before the deceased and elevate them to the realm of the Gods. Others may feel they are freeing their loved ones of an unwanted burden, thus causing these people to be thankful to the deceased for their actions and once again, deify them, or at least think admirably of them. In either case, these people are not necessarily wishing death, they just wish to feel like good people. They also forget, that should the world think more favourably of them in their death, nevertheless they will not be around to observe this. Death is absolute. Romantic ideas about death always avoid this fact. By imagining what might happen if I die, I am placing myself in the position of an observer after I die - a position I will never take.
The only unconditional love in this world comes from families. To think that your family would ever view you as a burden is, except in some very unfortunate cases that probably don't apply to anyone here, dead wrong. A family member of mine once got the idea into his head (at least I assume he did; I'll never know what he really thought that day) that he was a burden upon me (amongst others), and that I would be happier and better off should he die. He couldn't have been more wrong. By ending his life that day, my life was altered more drastically than the rest of my experiences put together. And it was quite awful for many years. Family members are about the only humans one can depend on with any confidence in this world - if you are feeling depressed they will want to help you, and will want to see you get better (not die!!), because they do care about you.
The same can't be said of husbands/wives/partners etc. They are not blood related, and cannot be depended on in the same way, in my opinion. That half of marriages today end in divorce highlights this fact. People simply change too much throughout the lifespan - a 15 year old is a different person at 20, at 30 and at 50. No matter how much two young people have in common, twenty years will probably see them as very different people to one another, and it is a truism that we all grow further apart as we age. So my point is that we mustn't rely on other people to make things better for us. Many people are tempted to do this, to think "I'd be happy if I had a boyfriend/girlfriend", but it really is never the case for very long. We all have to learn to find happiness and contentment on our own. Those that depend on others will never get there. Most of the time we just have to learn that money/school marks/exams/employment/relationships/travel or possessions - all the "big things" in life - are really not worth living for. It is the partying after exams, the many hours spent marvelling at the sound coming out of your piano as you hit the keys, the rain outside your window, the thrill of reading a good book - it is the simple things, in a word it is the beauty in life that is worth living for. You may change, but these beautiful things are permanent - you may always depend on them, and this is something you can say for NO human being. Happiness is available to us all. In the words of the great Franz Kafka (again) -
"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
Good luck! I hope this helped.
Topic: Dealing with depression.