Our cultural hypocrisy toward mental illness and addiction, not to mention fame and fortune, is never more evident than when some poor famous soul dies by suicide. "Why?" we ask. "Why would a person who seemed to have it all end their own life?" And then someone writes a book or makes a movie about it.
How many stories of the rich, famous and deeply unhappy must we watch or read before we accept that fame plus fortune doesn't equal happiness, and often seems to preclude it?
More important, how many people, famous or not, who have struggled with depression, anxiety or addiction will have their deaths treated like some true-crime mystery before we come to accept the proven fact that mental health is actual health and that mental illness is frequently fatal?
