[Monolith]

I read recently of some interesting research carried out at the University of Liverpool. It was a study that aimed to examine the effects of regular exercise upon a high number of individuals suffering from the condition of clinical depression. Forgive me that I haven't yet found a link to a citation for this, but I will try and dig it out.
In summary, an extremely high percentage of those that took part in the study improved drastically. Quite what the criteria for measuring improvements was, I'm not sure. But I think it does highlight that for many of us, not facing specific, localised crises, it does serve to highlight the role of the old cliche 'healthy body, healthy mind'. I'd just like to iterate here, that I am speaking aside from the extremely tragic stories that have been regaled within this thread, which as stated by the posters, pertained to much more complex psychological conditions than I am referring to.

[webbo]

working in the field of mental health.i have intervened on more occasions than i can remember when someone was actively suicidal i.e, plan,method,opportunity etc.although on occasion i have not been thanked for my intervention and sometimes the intervention failed  and the person was successfull.usually i have been at least acknowledged that my efforts saved the persons life and they were glad they had been prevented.
when you are in a black hole etc its hard to see light anywhere never mind at the end of the tunnel. 
with regard to someone suffering from schizophrenia like the guy bubba describes.there is a significant number of sufferers who will be treatment resistant and experience distressing symptoms on a daily basis,often these can be command hallucinations which might tell them to kill themselves.also if the sufferer one day gets the insight that this is as good as it gets and they are stuck with this for the rest of their life.
these are a couple of examples as to why there is a high suicide rate in the sufferers from schizophrenia and sadly there is often very little one can do to intervene if the above circumstances occur and the sufferer is unable to share this with anyone.