Yesterday we announced our upcoming trip to Amsterdam to shoot a future issue of Elska Magazine. This announcement came a week later than I intended, because of news of another gay life lost that derailed my motivations.

Preparations start by writing to anyone who'd previously filled out our 'Be in Elska' application, which people use to request us to come to their cities. I usually send them an email and a social media message to see if they're still interested. However, when I tried to do this last week, I discovered the word "remembering" above one applicant's name on his FB page. I then spent the next days trying to understand how this could have happened, why this keeps happening, why so many queer people still keep ending their lives.

Joe D, from our Elska Providence issue, one of our first subjects to open up about mental health struggles.

I got stuck in a sort of wormhole trying to make sense of it all. He was young, seemingly was doing well in his career, and his profile was full of happy smiley pics of him amongst friends. That social media page included a link to his personal blog, where I read his final post. Although online translators aren’t especially good at dealing with Dutch, I understood that his last message was all about feeling devastated and lost after a break-up that came unexpectedly. A bit more Googling revealed that two days after posting this he was dead.

I told some friends about this, and mostly they just said something like, "That's a shame". Well, yes, it is a shame, but why weren't they more moved? It's like they thought it was perfectly normal and OK to hear about another gay suicide. Or maybe I was particularly upset because I understood his feelings, because I've been near that place many times before. I know that depression can't be cured but it can be kept at bay, which means that his death felt so preventable, if only he had found that help. I don't want to blame anyone, although some blame lies on a society that still treats mental illness as not 'real' illness. Depression is extremely painful, but only if that pain is physical do people decide to see a doctor.

T Anoy, from our Elska Dhaka issue, who opened up about a failed suicide attempt.

I have been fortunate to have sought out professional help when I was at a particularly low time. Luckily I didn't have any of the stigma that made me worry that going to a 'shrink' meant that I was 'crazy' / 'mad' / 'loopy' / 'nuts', or maybe it didn't matter. Ultimately I knew I shouldn't feel like so low and that I had a right to try to get better. I also had access to affordable care — first through Britain's NHS and later with the help of a gay mental health charity. In recent years I've slacked on my care, but I luckily still remember enough tricks to keep me going.

One of these is keeping busy — Elska is my full-time job and sometimes the workload gets towards overwhelming, but being busy means that my mind is too distracted to succumb to the darkness. And if I'm not busy, I find something to do, like a bike ride accompanied by loud music in my headphones. Or maybe I'll get together with a friend — even when I feel like it's the last thing I want to do, the act of being sociable can really help. It's embarrassing to cry in front of your friends in public down the pub so you have to pretend to feel good, and eventually it rubs off. And if nothing else works (yes I know this is really bad advice) an over-the-counter sleeping pill can let me skip ahead some hours, and often I wake up feeling 'normal' again.

Alejandro G, from our Elska Guadalajara issue, who spoke of the difficulty dealing with anxiety and depression and the determination to keep going.

Beyond these little tricks, having something to look forward to helps as well. That holiday that you already spent too much money on for flights is a great motivator. Or my Elska work itself — the fact that there are people who have paid for annual subscriptions to the magazine means that I owe them another year of issues. It's a promise that I really honour, and by not wanting to let them down, I don't let myself down.

I don't have all that many answers. And maybe it's wrong to assume that I know what this man was going through. But I'm still really sad and really angry about it. I know that nobody deserves to feel this way, nobody should need to die. To my mates who replied with my sadness about his death with a :( emoticon , I guess you were just too uncomfortable to deal with it. Yes, it may not be pleasant, but I think if we talk about this stuff more and get upset and angry, it can help.

Liam Campbell is editor and chief photographer of Elska Magazine, a project about meeting ordinary gay guys around the world and introducing them to readers with honest photography and personal stories.