As one who has had to deal with suicide first hand (my wife 12 years ago) and recently 2 very close friends undergoing extreme financial stress which brought on major depression episodes, I need to emphatically stress there are multiple risk factors that contribute but primarily mental health conditions, such as major depression (not the fleeting depression we all experience from time to time).
To break down some myths, suicide is NOT an act of selfishness, revenge, cowardly or a cry for help. From the outside looking in it seems these things are the case. However, as my friend Thomas Joiner, a suicide researcher at Florida State University, who lost his dad to suicide, states, "(p)eople who kill themselves are influenced in doing so by mental illnesses, and these illnesses themselves are widely misunderstood, subject to many myths. But make no mistake, they're forces of nature. They're grave. They're severe, just like heart disease, cancer and stroke. They kill a million people every year - through - suicide worldwide."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=126365907
As a suicide survivor (yes that is the correct term used) it can be an incredible pile of shit to deal with not unlike walking through hell in a gasoline suit. You must deal not only with grief but also with myriad other overwhelming feelings, such as confusion, guilt, anger, shame, and hurt. It will haunt you for years and pop up when you least expect it to. What compounds the problems you will never have an answer. Trust me dealing with it is the hardest thing you will ever encounter.
As John O'Donohue said, "It only takes a few seconds to receive the news. Yet, when you do, you are already standing in a different world. All you know has just been rendered unsure, tenuous."
Many condolences to his family