For what turned out to be her final months, I spoke with her every day, thinking that my attentions would help safeguard her. She spent her last year in and out of the psychiatric ward at a major medical center, where she had the best of care. Mental health crisis: New 988 suicide hotline can be our fresh start.įive years later, my friend was suffering from hallucinations and most likely bipolar disorder. 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 family announced last week that they had created the Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals in their son’s name.Ī private funeral is planned for next week.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. The Raskins described how their son donated half of his teaching salary “to save people with malaria by purchasing mosquito nets with global charities” and spent the rest on donations in each of his students’ names to other groups targeting global hunger. “He loved his students and they loved him back,” his parents wrote. He spent last fall as a teaching assistant in a Harvard Law justice course, meeting with his dozen students on Zoom and “finding what was precious in their work and teasing it out.” “Above all, he began to follow his own piercing moral and intellectual insights looking for answers to problems of injustice, poverty and war.” “He hated cliques and social snobbery, never had a negative word for anyone but tyrants and despots, and opposed all malicious gossip,” the post said. 30, 1995, the middle child was “a daring outspoken defender of all outcasts and kids in trouble” who spent hours in high school tutoring his peers. “making mischief, kicking the soccer ball in the goal, acting out scenes from To Kill A Mockingbird with his little sister in his father’s constitutional law class.”īorn Jan. The eulogy described Thomas’ youth in Takoma Park, Md. “On the last hellish brutal day of that godawful miserable year of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people all over the world died alone in bed in the darkness from an invisible killer disease ravaging their bodies and minds, we also lost our dear, dear, beloved son, Hannah and Tabitha’s beloved irreplaceable brother, a radiant light in this broken world.” The moving post detailed how Thomas began grappling with depression in his 20s, and how the illness was “a kind of relentless torture in the brain for him.”ĭespite a large support network of relatives, friends and doctors “the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last for our dear boy.” “Tommy Raskin had a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a riotously outrageous and relentless sense of humor, and a dazzling radiant mind,” his parents wrote. Known to loved ones as “Tommy,” the second-year student at Harvard Law School was remembered as an animal lover and passionate vegan devoted to helping others. “Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me,” said the note, signed: “All my love, Tommy.” My illness won today,” his parents said in a Medium post. In a note left for his family on New Year’s Eve, the day he died, Thomas Bloom Raskin wrote “Please forgive me. Jamie Raskin and his wife Sarah on Monday published a heart-wrenching tribute to their late son, confirming that the 25-year-old took his own life last week after a long battle with depression. Harry Potter actor Leslie Phillips dead at 98 Watermelon-smashing comedian Gallagher is dead at 76
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