courting public opinion's mental capacity

I've been forced (well, salaried) to write on topics with which I don't agree, or around people I find undeserving of limited magazine white space. Mostly I've been instructed - by editors, bosses, friends and the like - to create editorial copy as a means to some end they all have in mind.
This blog is wholly mine and, while I made a brief attempt to demand of myself a blog about a most-deserving suicide victim whose wake today was the saddest I've attended in my 29 years, I cannot find the words and therefore am forsaking it, though it pertains in ways to the paragraphs that follow.
Why is it that we uphold such things as less-than-acceptable for public discussion ... politics is the obvious one, and religion ... but a person's mental state is a topic upon which people like to get on their soap box. (I'm certainly about to.)
And yet if you're talking about your own mental inability to recover from depression, it's taboo. You might as well wave your freak flag, stamp an A on your chest and wear those earlobe-hole-stretching things because you're going to be forever marked as such by the person you entrust with this information.
Anxiety? Fine, we get it. It's okay. As long as it doesn't last. It's fleeting and we don't have to think about it unless it's happening in front of us.
Fear? Sure. Everyone's scared of something. Though it's not a quality we'd like to cultivate, it's not one we condemn someone for.
But Depression? We have all been sad. It's the universal human condition. You have had that sinking feeling that the world sucks, everyone hates you and you're as insecure as the 7th grader who got her first period while wearing white pants. And yet when someone admits to being depressed, it's got it's own Bradley Effect-type response. The person to whom you've divulged this "secret" (you wouldn't keep your skin cancer a "secret" but this, yes) will most likely pretend to understand. But for those who have never experienced it, you will be to them another "race" of person. One who cannot pull themselves out of a "bad day" ... and to them it seems a bit ludicrous and self-centered.
This most common of human conditions is one to which we refuse to relate. I cannot continue to believe that the inability to accept this medical condition as such is still a holdover from the tough-as-nails keep-it-to-yourself norms of the 1950s.
We have opened up and thrown the towel in the ring about everything ... from sex and homosexuality to religion, race (particularly this election season) and welfare. And more. We hold down mental illness as the step child of healthcare. It's not covered under my current heathcare plan, I wouldn't tell my employer or feel like I could attend weekly sessions with a psychiatrist without coming up with some elaborate story for coworkers, friends and family when asked where I am every Tuesday from 4-5 p.m.
It's viewed as a failure of strength; you're a person who can't pull themselves up out of the depths of sadness. And heaven forbid you've lived a decent life before acting like the world is falling apart.
And it is this that caused a friend to take his own life. Finally, in an attempt to give society the finger, he started seeing a doctor about his depressed days. He confided in a few good people. He started taking some new anti-depressant drug (underresearched, underfunded because of underestimation of the condition) that actually made a difference. But when he pulled himself up, got strong and felt happy, he started thinking that he didn't need those anymore; he didn't want to take them or be labeled as such because he beat it.
He hadn't.