My new book

The quickness and flexibility of a well mind, a belief or hope that things will eventually sort themselves out--these are the resources lost to a person when the brain is ill.

I am reading a new book.  It's a real picker-upper, called Night Falls Fast. Dr. B recommended it, after I visited him this week. I hadn't seen him since you died, and he sent me a message to come by.

I was honest with him, about all of it. He said I'm familiar with suicide. I lost my dad, my brother, and my second son to suicide.

So you can imagine the conversation was interesting.

He also said if I had to tell you how you go about getting over this, I couldn't do it. I just know you will, you will get over it someday.  There is one thing I want you to remember, Heather. You did not do this. You did not do this.

I know that. I also know if I had done things differently you would still be alive. Probably still struggling, but alive. I've come to a chapter in this new book that is really resonating with me. It's all about how suicidal people do not commit suicide because of regular life stresses like unemployment or divorce or illness.

Reading this chapter is like watching a video of our last months together this summer. Your constant despair, your belief that life for you was ending with our divorce, you couldn't picture your future, you had no hope. I was so confused by that, you'd been divorced before. Now, I can read this book that explains those thoughts weren't my fault, they weren't brought on by me. They were brought on by your sick brain, and you didn't get the right treatment in time.

I'm so sorry for that, Neil. I wish I'd been able to be more involved in your treatment this time around. I knew your doctor was shitty and your sessions with your therapist were at best unproductive. Maybe we could have found you a better doctor, one who recognized your sickness for what it was instead of commenting on what a good-looking young man you were, remembering you as the drug rep who'd called on him all those years instead of the dangerously depressed guy who had to take three months off of work last fall.

I can't help but think every one of us in your life let you down. I know that's not a reasonable thought, but it's there. I hope I can move past that.