When my father Victor died by suicide seven years ago, it completely changed the way I thought about the act. I had once imagined it as something that could provide the ultimate comfort, when I was a depressed teenager who had been exposed to a lot of pain and trauma at a young age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each May, during Mental Health Awareness Month, I think about my parents who both struggled with mental health issues without support from within or outside of their communities for much of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our culture has advanced quite a bit from the time in which I grew up. Before hashtags and Facebook groups, the only information I could find about mental illness was in the books I borrowed from the New York Public Library. Back then, I didn\u2019t even know what to look for. I only knew my mother, Marguerite, was sometimes violently abusive and sometimes terribly depressed. Her bipolar and borderline personality disorders weren\u2019t diagnosed until the last decade of her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n