May be cliché, a day after the news broke, to say that Cheslie Kryst “had it all”…but the truth is, on the surface, she did.
A bright & articulate 30 yr old successful/driven attorney…a fashion blogger & entertainment news correspondent…a beauty queen who was crowned Miss USA in 2019…holding an apartment in a luxury Manhattan building. How does this happen & what can we learn to prevent more of these tragedies. Bc – “thoughts & prayers” aren’t enough.
Here’s what has struck me: SO many of these cases, where we go – “you’d never have thought…not them” have happened…that it’s now become common place.
I remember when we lost Hilary Tisch – the daughter of the Giants Owner – herself a beautiful person inside/out, & charitable, ppl were shocked. But we’ve also lost these public figures – between Hilary & Cheslie…& this is only a partial list to suicide or overdose or a life spinning out of control:
Tampa Rays bullpen catcher Jean Ramírez, New Zealand Olympian – Olivia Podmore, Hawaii CFB QB – Colt Brennan, NFL’er – Phillip Adams, NFL’er – Vincent Jackson, Son of Congressman Jamie Raskin – Thomas Raskin, Zappos Founder – Tony Hsieh,
Georgia Tech Football Scholarship Recipient set to go to school there – Bryce Gowdy.
What upsets me is – this reminds me of when all those high profile school shootings were happening (sad we even need to say high profile bc of how many there’ve been)…we almost became numb to them. It was expected to hear about one in the news.
My hope was – the likes of Hilary, now on thru Cheslie, would wake ppl up. Wake up govt…schools…offices…teams…that this CAN & DOES happen to anyone. Trauma is a silent killer. Suicide & overdose are like “heart attacks of our brains.”
As a group on the front lines, all I can ask for is schools, offices, & the aforementioned groups to START discussing suicide. This topic doesn’t go away by burying. It gets worse.
We’ve seen it first-hand. When you address it…you give ppl a heads up: what ideations feel like & how common they are (13M ppl w “major ideations” in 2021 in the US) – you SAVE lives. You give ppl hope that they aren’t alone & can fight the error msgs.