A little after 10 a.m. on June 5, police responded to a call made by a housekeeper at an upscale Manhattan apartment. Inside, they found the body of legendary fashion designer Kate Spade, who had hanged herself in apparent suicide. Spade left behind a note addressed to her husband and daughter, yet nothing she wrote could answer the question that devastated her friends and family and rang through media reports in the following days: Why would a wildly successful and seemingly happy 55-year-old mother take her own life? 

Just three days later, this same scene played out in a hotel room in France, where the body of another beloved celebrity, Anthony Bourdain, was found. A similar refrain began to play out: initial shock and questions that soon gave way to reports that both celebrities were battling their own quiet wars with depression. 

The news came as a surprise to many, but for Dr. Madhukar H. Trivedi, it was simply additional confirmation of the troubling health trend he has witnessed in his daily work as the Director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care, a cornerstone of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: that depression goes undetected and untreated on a colossal scale.

According to Trivedi, 70 to 80 percent of people suffering from a mental health condition never see a mental health professional, and suicide is only one of the consequences of leaving such a condition untreated.