I felt my heart sink recently when I learned of the death of Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper who committed suicide. I had never heard of the man before, yet I felt great empathy for him upon reading the circumstances surrounding his untimely demise.
Even before the death of his infant daughter in 2006, Enke had suffered from depression. However, that event took his illness to its deepest form – a spiraling sense of dispair and futility that would ultimately have him take his life, rather than struggle on in apparent hopelessness.
That he had managed to hide the depths of his depression so well only served to make the blow delivered to his friends and family that much more severe. That’s the trouble with depression – it’s something you can hide, both from those closest to you and from yourself.