Men do seek help for depression. I wish my dad had | Zac Seidler

One thing they never tell you about suicide is that you’ll never be able to relax when you have a couple of missed calls

A few days ago, I sent my brother who lives in the United States a message. All it said was: “Bad news … ” I was intending on following that up with: “My phone is about to run out of battery” but I didn’t get the chance. He replied: “What?! What happened?!” before calling me immediately. What he said struck me: “You know you can’t go around sending messages like that.”

Almost five years ago, our dad killed himself. One of my brothers and I were overseas at the time, him in Belgium and I in Portugal when it happened. We both awoke in the early morning to a relentless buzzing. Our family is not one known for helicopter parenting or being overbearing when travelling so when I saw nine missed calls, I knew there was bad news waiting for me.

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Continue reading... January 09, 2018 at 10:30PM