One posted that she wished she could have been there for him, as if she had a superpower that might have saved him. Indeed, depression turns us into secretive people who conceal their pain - and their risk. As one blogger wrote a few years ago for a mental health campaign, “People suffering from mental health problems (pull) a shroud of secrecy over their lives in the hope that people don’t find out how they’re really feeling.” My bipolar friend who died by suicide did not.Īs much as I was pained by Tommy’s death, I also found myself vexed as I read comments on his public Facebook page, because some posts highlighted wrong notions about depression and suicide. Capitol, where the congressman was present because he believed it was his duty to count the electoral votes and confirm Joe Biden’s presidential victory.Īn invisible burden: I have a disability everyone can see. It took courage for the Raskins to come forward. The family continued to show courage when, the day after Raskin buried his son, the grieving father found himself caught in the Trump-fueled insurrection at the U.S. The hotline: Finally we can call 988 suicide hotline when we fear that we or a loved one is at riskīecause of the stigma surrounding suicide, many researchers say these numbers are underreported. His depression was "a kind of relentless torture in the brain for him, and despite very fine doctors and a loving family … the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last.” Misunderstanding depressionĪ friend sent me the Raskins’ message because she knows I’ve been an advocate for openness about not only mental illness - especially depression, which I also suffer from - but also the plague of suicides in this country, which took nearly 50,000 Americans in 2018. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the annual suicide rate increased 35% from 1999 through 2018, with the suicide rate among men nearly four times higher than women. He also had a secret, which ultimately took his life.Īt the end of the statement, the Raskins named the disease that killed their son.
Tommy “had a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a riotously outrageous and relentless sense of humor, and a dazzling radiant mind,” they wrote. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Sarah Bloom Raskin, memorialized Tommy in a lengthy post on Medium, introducing many of us to their brilliant and much-loved son. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. He left a short note for his family, which read: "Please forgive me. On the last day of December, 25-year-old Harvard law student Thomas Raskin died by suicide.
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