Bob CollinsToday’s driveway moment — as is usually the case on Fridays — comes from StoryCorps.
Linda Kwong tried to take her own life in 2012, but she lived to talk about it publicly, something that almost never happens. We’re not that advanced yet in our willingness to talk about such things.
“I took 180 pills,” she tells her daughter, Emily, in the episode. “I didn’t write a note. I just put the bottles back in the medicine cabinet and went to bed.”
The family was shocked, of course. They didn’t know Linda’s level of desperation because she was good at covering it up until it was too exhausting to go on.
“I actually faked a lot,” she says. “I never faked my love for you, but I was suicidal since I was 14, so I was a good faker.”
When we get better about talking about mental health, we’ll all recognize that we’re all faking to some degree and when we do, we won’t feel quite so alone.
Are we getting better at this? We are.
On Monday, for example, the Minnesota State Fair will host its first Mental Health Day at Carousel Park.
I’ll be hosting a segment starting around 11 a.m., interviewing Ted Matthews, a counselor from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture who travels the state offering free counseling to stressed farmers.
