It’s a pretty deflating day when there are 2 deaths, 1 confirmed a suicide, & 1 where all signed sadly point to it – to the youngest & what appeared to be brightest lights among us – in this case (first slide); the 36 yr old brother (Charles) of Glee star, Darren Criss.
Second➡️, the loss of national champion – goalie for the Stanford Women’s Soccer Team – Katie Meyer, at only 22, where suicide is not yet confirmed.
For this post, I’m gonna focus on how Darren handled the unfathomable loss – bc what he gave was a gift: to the world, & to himself, via his share.
While Darren admitted he was unsure of how much info he wanted to put out publicly, he decided it was better to be as clear as possible:
He wrote why being clear & open was so impt: “I’ve learned by now that vagueness can lead to confusion, & provoke ideas far worse than the truth.”
He explained how suicide can be a slow, often silent build: “He had a severe depression welling up inside of him. A depression that was only worsened by a lifelong struggle he had w expressing his feelings — a dangerous combo.”
As I’ll often talk abt suicide being “error messages when a system breaks down from overload”…look at how eloquently he describes this – to take away the shame of ppl thinking it was a choice: “A force so great it had the power to ‘system override’ his (Charles’) resilience.”
He talked abt how being open helped HIM to cope, as opposed to concealing it: “It put me at peace to share details w others.” And in doing so, look at how glowingly he was able to talk abt his brother:
“Chuck was vibrant, special, worldly, hilarious, insightful, gifted, intelligent, celebrated & adored. He was a good man w a good heart who contributed enormous amounts of laughter, music, & joy to the world.”
Compare this to what happens when public figures are lost to suicide, no one talks abt it, we hear a death cloaked in mystery, w the suicide prevention hotline (seemingly out of place bc of no previous mention of suicide).
We owe it to those we’ve lost…to those who’ll struggle…those who may experience this awful “system override” to remove the shame, like Darren did here for his brother.
