Depression, like anorexia, OCD, ADD, Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder all share at least one allele in common. While there are many other genes involved, and we don’t yet know what they are, or if the mental illnesses share them, it is clear there is at least a tiny link between them. This allele, if I recall properly, expresses a protein that affects the uptake of (sodium?) or whatever it is that brain cells need to communicate properly.
Mental illness is an organic condition. Because it affects the way we think, we believe we have control over it, mentally. While we can influence it mentally, in many cases that’s not enough. Also, why the bias against using medications that can fix how our brains work? It’s like saying if you have cancer, you’ll use brain power to get rid of the cancerous cells. You might be able to do a little through using your brain, but you probably won’t be able to kick it, entirely.
Not having money to pay for a psychiatric evaluation or for therapy is a serious problem. In a year or so, the mental health parity bill will go into effect, and insurance will have to cover mental health expenses at the same rate as they cover other medical expenses.
If you don’t have insurance, maybe you can get Medicaid, or there are other ways to find folks who will pay for the help. There are groups like DBSA and another one that I always forget that help folks (they are support groups and have experience dealing with these problems).
The bottom line is that the urge to commit suicide is a result of depression. If you’re like me, you feel absolutely worthless, and don’t understand why people don’t see that. In order to make your external circumstances feel like your internal ones, you take action to destroy your life. In my case, I wanted to destroy my marriage, my job, and my housing and end up homeless. Eventually I imagined I’d die. In your case, you are starving yourself to death.
ANother thing that can help is to get a support group—depression, anorexia, bipolar, it really doesn’t matter. Often these groups are free, which deals with the money problem. You can get good advice, and more importantly, a place to talk about what you’re going through, and everyone will understand, because they’ve been through it, or are going through it, too.