As someone who has pulled himself back from suicidality, I absolutely abhor the expression "died by suicide".

If I had gone through with it, I would have killed myself - and any euphemisms being thrown around would serve no-one at all (especially not those still living in that hole).

I would much rather have it framed as me having done something unforgivably stupid and completely preventable - but as a society we'd much rather reject that reality and instead refuse to acknowledge that more often than not the signs were all there; that not only was the death an irreversible act of idiocy, but it was also something that we could've and should've stopped yet did nothing to prevent.

I've had similar experiences, and I have exactly the opposite beliefs.

Depression isn't a failing on the person's part, and it isn't stupidity. Nor is suicide resulting from depression. It's a disease, and you "die from suicide" the same way you "die from cancer" - from the effects of your disease disrupting vital functions of your existence until you can no longer survive.

For me, at least, understanding and healing from severe mental illness required understanding that the illness wasn't "me". It was this crappy thing I had to live with because some part of my brain Just Does That Sometimes. See [1] among other posts, but the only way I've ever found to beat my own tendencies towards mental illness - and they are extremely strong - is to treat them like a chronic disease. The same way that a person with liver disease has to avoid drinking, I have to avoid the things that trigger my own chronic depression.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41113032