James Donaldson on Mental Health - We’re Family, and We Lost Loved Ones to Suicide 25 Years Apart. Here’s What’s Changed About Suicide in America, and What Hasn’t

For years he told me he was in no mental space to start dating someone, but that summer he seemed like the best version of himself.

He was teaching himself music production, learning Japanese, and taking computer science and AI courses he found online.

I’ll never forget sitting with him on the rug of my childhood bedroom as he explained that while he’d spent lots of time contemplating ending his life, he’d come to the conclusion that he was done thinking about suicide ever again.

His tone was serious, yet calm, as he gazed at me warmly through his oversize wire-rimmed glasses.

More important, I could tell he believed himself.

How did everything fall apart so quickly?

Picking Up the Pieces Katie In the weeks and months that followed my father’s death, we began to piece things together.

Financial distress, kept hidden even from my mother, was likely a contributing factor.

But there were the memories of a childhood that wasn’t honest (he only learned at age 14 that he was adopted by his father when a cousin used this information to publicly shame him), rejection by his family as an adult, and a biological father who resurfaced many hidden childhood traumas when he attempted to connect with him later in life.

We shed many tears together during those weeks, perched at the end of my parents’ bed, sifting through clues.