I was diagnosed with depression during my military career. Divorce you don't want but caused combined with prior PTSD not treated will do that to you. But I Managed it without drugs or medicine. I had become my own healer just have to keep me in check. I will never take my life... It will change my children DNA to children of a suicidal. Can Not Do That To Them. They Been Told If I ever Die doing something Stupid it was an Accident and Not The End Result I Wanted. I enjoy life too much to want to check out but I am ready when my number is up. But Not My Choice... never my option. Plus I got this massive, beautiful collection of shoes that I need to wear out their soles!!!!

As Camus said, the ultimate and basic question in life is, "Why not commit suicide?" But that's if you're grappling with a new sense of lack of inherent meaninglessness to existence, upon a rejection of the notion of a theistic or other god.

John Barth, whose writing career began amid the advent of existentialism, sought to answer this question in his first novel, "The Floating Opera"--not necessarily successfully.

An atheist, agnostic or other "irreligious" can and maybe must concoct and live by their own "meaning of life." In a college paper many years ago, i justified my Jewish identity and alignment based on its emphasis--at least in many of its traditions and strains--on this life, this world, the "here and now" ... making THIS world a better place for all and posterity, rather than worrying about an afterlife and our fitness for it.

Just as Dostoevsky worried that "without God, anything is possible" (and so it is, but also with God), in a world lacking inherent meaning and purpose, we can still have meaning and purpose. Affirming and constructing that is more of an antidote to despair and suicide than is conventional religion and its "morality" based on humans being inherently flawed or bad and in need of fixing and salvation.

having a mental construct that gives purpose and meaning to all the craziness around us can make it easier to get up in the morning

I am depressed right now, primarily because I am lonely. I live in the damn bible belt and trying to find a mate is so discouraging. If I went to church, and supported trump, I would probably be coupled up by now.

Religion provides a placebo effect where we convince ourselves we're being taken care of by invisible forces, thereby offsetting the inherent depression we'd otherwise wallow in.

of course, reality is worse than a fairy tale and can be depressing.

In my case it's true, once I became an out atheist, at 14, in Arkansas, I was immediately shunned. After months of being told to repent, etc.,losing all my friends and being ostracized by my whole family, I attempted suicide several times. It's not the lack of belief that drove me there, it was my so called loved ones.

There is (to me) a lot of assumptions in this article as any form you fill out does not ask if you're an atheist. Yes, they sometimes ask what religion you are, however if you're like me you either don't answer it or reply non-religious (which is not the same thing as atheist).

I've been committed to a hospital after a suicide attempt. I don't recall filling out a questionnaire about religious affiliation.