What's the old saying.
Can't judge a book by its cover, usually anyway.
It's not like a bleeding wound or a broken bone. X-rays can't see it. And no visible damage.
We can't see other people's minds, thoughts or feelings.
Exactly. It is incredibly difficult to measure someone else's pain.
There are illnesses that are lifelong but not deadly, and there are other illnesses that can be cured, but when not treated can kill a person in a horrible way in a matter of days. If I get something relatively mundane like pneumonia, will not get treatment and will be slowly dying from it in my apartment, would it mean I am in less pain than someone with a permanent incurable condition like psoriasis, or even epilepsy? Not necessarily.
I think it's the same way with the mental state. The person might be in an absolutely horrendous mental state and extremely likely to actually CTB, and yet it might be possible to help them. And someone else might be what we call "chronically suicidal" and in spite of constantly having suicidal thoughts in the background, they might keep living, functioning and even occasionally feeling more or less content for years. I have what they call "treatment-resistant depression". I don't think that means that my depression is "worse" that someone's who can be helped with antidepressants. And I still antidepressants are at least worth a try if your next option is CTB and you have nothing to lose, even though they did not help me. If you never try - you'd never really know whether it would work or not. But everyone has a right to decide for themselves, of course.
If a person dies over the most minor and the most stupid thing ever, they are still as dead as anybody else, and being dead is, you know, kind of serious regardless of the cause. I think it is wrong to judge someone for being suicidal regardless of the reason, unless they are actually using the threat of suicide to get their way.
I think that the idea of suicide prevention is generally a good idea, it is just currently implemented in an incredibly shitty way. If there is absolutely nothing you can offer the person to at least try to make them feel better, other than things that they've already tried and that didn't do shit, just keeping them alive is inhumane. Treating suicidal people like criminals and using physical force to keep them alive and force them into treatment is inhumane. Turning people away when they are willing to try to recover and telling them it is their responsibility and their choice to help themselves, then doing a full 180, forcing them into treatment and completely denying them any agency once they actually choose not to recover and to give up instead is absolute fucking insanity, especially when the same person can go through several rounds of this shit, just sounds like some insane sadistic cat-and-mouse game. In a perfect world, a person should have a choice. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to offer them options that might keep them alive, but physically forcing someone to choose this options is not good.
Another thing is that hell yes, there is situational depression. Which doesn't mean that it is any less of a valid reason to CTB if your situation that causes it cannot be fixed. If anything, the current style of "suicide prevention" becomes even more of a piece of shit idea. What's the point of forcing someone into treatment if it isn't going to do shit to fix the problem that made them suicidal? Okay, maybe you try that once to see if they feel any better about the cause of their depression, but what if they don't? What's the point of continuing to force them into treatment, it's like applying essential oils to a wound that still has the knife sticking out of it.
