You Can't Take It With You
You can't take it with you. That's the saying, anyway. Some people are convinced otherwise, and they act on it. Think about the news stories where someone kills and then turns the weapon on themselves. What kind of rage lives inside a person who wants to die and drag others down with them?
Depression, in a lot of cases, is anger pointed back at the self. To want to end your own life takes a staggering amount of that anger. And anger folded inward doesn't stay quiet. It builds pressure. When it finally breaks loose and turns outward, the damage multiplies.
Picture someone who feels hopeless and worthless, maybe even certain they're bound for hell. That state breeds resentment toward the whole world: toward the people they blame for making them this way, and toward everyone who seems to have gotten an easier deal. From there it's a short step to aiming the rage outward, at the ones they hate and the ones they envy.
People ask me about this fairly often. Why does someone who takes their own life insist on taking others along? The crueler version is harder to sit with: a person will target the loved ones of someone they're furious at, killing those loved ones instead of (or along with) the intended target. The point isn't a quick end for the enemy. It's to leave them alive, forced to spend the rest of their years grieving.
So if you're depressed, please stop before the anger reaches that point.