There are some deaths that leave us heartbroken. There are others that leave us bewildered. The recent death of my nephew, filmmaker Anik Dutta, left me feeling both. In the days that followed, I found myself asking the same questions that countless families ask after losing a loved one to suicide. What pain was he carrying that others could not see? What darkness had settled upon his mind? Could anything have been done differently? These questions have no easy answers.
Yet they point us toward a larger issue that deserves far greater public attention: depression, loneliness, and the terrible toll they can exact on the human spirit. As I struggled with these questions, I was reminded that depression remains one of the least understood illnesses in our society. We readily sympathize with those suffering from cancer, heart disease, or kidney failure. Yet when it comes to mental illness, misunderstanding and stigma continue to flourish.
Like many others, I spent the days following Anik’s death reading newspaper reports, social media posts, and online commentary. Some of it was thoughtful and compassionate. Much of it, however, revealed how poorly depression is understood. There were speculations, judgments, and simplistic explanations. What was largely absent was an appreciation of the profound suffering that severe depression can inflict upon the human mind. Too often, we ask the wrong questions.
How could someone with talent, success, recognition, and the affection of family and friends choose to end his life? How could someone who appeared outwardly successful feel such despair? These questions are understandable. Yet they are often rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of depression itself. Depression is not sadness. It is not disappointment. It is not a temporary mood that can be overcome through willpower, positive thinking, or a change of scenery.
Clinical depression is a serious illness that alters the way people think, feel, and perceive reality. Like heart disease or diabetes, it is a medical condition. It can be treated and often managed successfully. Yet when left unchecked, it can become life-threatening. The tragedy is that those who have never experienced severe depression often find it difficult to comprehend its intensity. Few writers have described this reality more powerfully than William Styron in his remarkable memoir Darkness Visible. Styron suffered a devastating depressive episode that brought him to the brink of suicide.
He described depression as a “gray drizzle of horror,” a phrase that captures the relentless and suffocating nature of the illness. Styron wrote that the pain of severe depression is “quite unimaginable” to those who have never experienced it. More importantly, he argued that what drives many people towards suicide is not merely pain itself but the conviction that the pain will never end. “It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul,” he observed. Human beings can endure extraordinary suffering when they believe relief lies ahead.
Hope sustains life. Depression destroys hope. Styron compared severe depression to being trapped inside an unbearably overheated room from which there is no escape. He argued that the word “depression” itself was inadequate because it failed to convey the intensity of the suffering. To many sufferers, the illness feels less like sadness than a form of psychic agony. This insight helps explain why suicide cannot be understood through ordinary logic. The healthy mind evaluates alternatives. The severely depressed mind often loses the ability to imagine them. The English novelist Virginia Woolf understood this reality all too well.
One of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century, Woolf battled recurrent episodes of severe depression throughout her life. Despite her immense intellectual gifts and literary accomplishments, she repeatedly found herself overwhelmed by mental anguish. Shortly before her death in 1941, she wrote a heartbreaking letter to her husband, Leonard Woolf: “I feel certain that I am going mad again.” It was not the cry of a selfish person or someone indifferent to those she loved. It was the voice of a woman exhausted by years of struggle and terrified by the prospect of enduring another descent into darkness. Her tragedy reminds us that depression does not discriminate.
It affects artists and labourers, professors and plumbers, students and retirees. Intelligence offers no protection. Wealth offers no protection. Fame offers no protection. The deaths of Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain further illustrate this painful truth. Williams spent a lifetime making the world laugh. Bourdain travelled the globe, achieved international fame, and inspired millions through his curiosity and humanity. Yet both men carried burdens invisible to those who admired them.
Their deaths stunned the world because they challenged one of our most persistent assumptions: that success brings happiness. Depression does not care about fame, wealth, achievement, or public admiration. It operates according to its own cruel logic. In India, discussions of mental health are often shrouded in silence. Families readily acknowledge diabetes, hypertension, or arthritis. Depression, however, is frequently dismissed as weakness, pessimism, lack of faith, or an inability to think positively. As a consequence, many sufferers endure their anguish alone. They conceal their symptoms from family members, friends, and colleagues for fear of being judged or misunderstood. Men are often particularly vulnerable.
From childhood, many are taught to suppress emotional pain, conceal vulnerability, and project strength regardless of what they may be experiencing internally. Seeking help is sometimes viewed as weakness rather than wisdom. The result is that countless men suffer in silence, reluctant to discuss their fears, sadness, loneliness, or despair. By the time family members recognize the depth of the problem, the illness may have become severe. Compounding the problem is the epidemic of loneliness that afflicts modern society. Despite unprecedented technological connectivity, millions of people feel increasingly isolated from meaningful human relationships.
For individuals already struggling with depression, loneliness can be especially destructive. Human beings are social creatures. We require affection, companionship, understanding, and a sense of belonging. When those needs go unmet for extended periods, emotional suffering can deepen dramatically. Many people suffering from depression withdraw from family and friends. They stop returning phone calls. They decline invitations. They retreat into themselves. Unfortunately, this withdrawal is often misunderstood. Observers may conclude that the individual simply wishes to be left alone.
The reality is often quite different. Many depressed individuals desperately want connection but lack the emotional energy to seek it. The illness itself becomes a barrier separating them from the very people who might provide comfort and support. This is why compassion matters. Far too often, depression is met with impatience, judgment, or simplistic advice. People are told to cheer up, count their blessings, think positively, or simply move on. Such advice, though usually well-intentioned, reflects a profound misunderstanding of the illness. What sufferers need is understanding, treatment, and human connection.
They need people willing to listen without judgment. They need family members and friends who recognize that depression is not a character flaw but a genuine medical condition. Most importantly, they need to know that recovery is possible. Millions of people who once suffered from severe depression have gone on to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives. Therapy, medication, social support, lifestyle changes, and timely intervention have helped countless individuals reclaim hope and rediscover purpose. Depression is treatable. But treatment becomes more difficult when stigma discourages people from seeking help.
Those left behind after a suicide often carry a heavy burden of guilt. They replay conversations, revisit memories, and search endlessly for clues they may have missed. They wonder whether one more phone call, one more visit, one more conversation might have changed the outcome. Such feelings are understandable, but they also remind us of the complexity of depression. Families can offer love, support, and encouragement, yet still lose someone they cherish to this illness. As I think of Anik today, I do not wish to remember the circumstances of his death. I prefer to remember his creativity, his accomplishments, his humour, and the contributions he made to Bengali cinema. Like all artists, he wished to leave something of himself behind. He succeeded.
Yet if his passing can teach us anything, let it be this: depression is real, loneliness is real, and suffering is often invisible. Somewhere in our neighbourhoods, workplaces, universities, and even within our own families, there are people fighting battles that we cannot see. They need more than advice. They need more than judgment. They need understanding. They need compassion.
And sometimes, they simply need another human being willing to sit beside them in the darkness until the light returns. That may be the most important lesson of all. We cannot always cure another person’s suffering. We cannot always rescue them from despair. But we can choose kindness over indifference, understanding over judgment, and presence over neglect. In a world where so many people suffer silently, those choices matter more than we know.
(The writer is Professor Emeritus at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles)