This pattern is heartbreakingly common among LGBT people.
#Senator raskin son loss skin
As is true for many LGBTQ people, my depression was exacerbated by the stress of coping with homophobia and discrimination.įor more than 20 years I practiced self-harm - the insides of my arms and thighs are a patchwork of fine white and pink scars - the marks of the razors I regularly took to my own skin in an attempt to release the pain caused by my depression.
Soon after my release, the trauma of the treatment caused me to attempt suicide. I was then hospitalized in the adolescent unit of a Philadelphia mental hospital for conversion therapy. At 16 I was expelled from Philadelphia High School for Girls for being a lesbian. Depression is a national crisis as bad as COVID-19, but one which the nation’s broken healthcare system has yet to address.ĭepression is a chronic illness for many. I have often felt suicidal and have been grateful for the skilled care I am under and the support of those closest to me.īut as Tommy Raskin’s tragic death made clear, love and support isn’t always enough to save us. For the past year I have been being treated for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Suicide is the opt-out clause for crushing, irrevocable, unacceptable pain, be that pain physical or emotional or, as it is for most people suffering from depression, both. Sometimes dying is not the threat, but the promise. But sometimes, for those of us with depression, our brains rewire themselves. Our autonomic reflexes tell us, live, breathe, run, live. Suicide goes against the grain of our very DNA. The second-year Harvard Law student also had depression, a devastating and sometimes - as in Tommy’s case - fatal illness. Raskin (D-MD) and former Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom, wrote, “Tommy Raskin had a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a riotously outrageous and relentless sense of humor, and a dazzling radiant mind.” In a gripping Medium post eulogizing their son and detailing his illness, Tommy’s parents, Rep. “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,” Tommy Raskin wrote. His suicide note was short and painfully succinct: “Please forgive me. On New Year’s Eve, Congressman Jamie Raskin’s son, Tommy, took his own life. The Trevor Project hotline is 1-86, and is also 24/7. If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-80 and is 24/7.
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