(CNN)Nima Bhakta was that college friend who everyone knew would be a great mother.
We met in 2006, and I could see that she was always at ease when she interacted with children.
Kind and confident, she was also the friend who talked about how excited she was to have children of her own.
That's why it was such a devastating loss to her family, friends and to me, when she lost her battle with postpartum depression and died by suicide on July 24. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in women with postpartum depression.
Nima Bhakta (L) and author Sneha Kohli Mathur (R) became roommates and friends at the University of California San Diego.
In a letter to her family before she died, Nima wrote that she tried to tell her loved ones about her struggle with postpartum depression but she hadn't been able to find the words to explain the depth of her suffering. She wrote that she had a loving and supportive husband and that no one was at fault for her pain.
It started, she wrote, after her son was born in 2019. She felt completely changed as an individual, wife, sister, daughter and aunt, and she didn't understand how she couldn't even attempt cooking or other things that she once enjoyed. </