EVA EVAN’S STORY

Director and Producer / “A LETTER TO MY FATHER“

My mother called me during Thanksgiving dinner, asked me to speak and to get my sister and my brother-in-law and put them on speaker phone somewhere private. I knew what the call was going to be. She said, “Matt has died.” Zoe began sobbing. I asked, “did he kill himself?” And my mom said yes, it seemed that way. I broke.

Two days before Thanksgiving of 2018, my father shot himself in his bed at his home in South Carolina. His girlfriend arrived at his house on thanksgiving day to discover a note on the door telling her not to come in, to call the police, and that he’d shot himself. He left behind her, his friends, his family, and his four daughters. It will never stop being devastating.

September is #suicideawareness month… and I see a lot of people saying things like “reach out to your friends and check on them. Make sure they feel loved.” Sure, yes, please do that. Because we all want and need love. However, I do not believe this will save lives.

My dad began threatening suicide to me when I was 7 years old. My childhood was constant anxiety, working in overdrive to try to keep him ALIVE to make him feel loved. My father did not leave behind a slew of people who loved him because he didn’t know they loved him. My father killed himself because he had no idea how to love himself. He didn’t have the tools he needed to handle his demons, so he shot them.

So, this letter is for those who are “fine,” who have trauma or anxiety or poor coping mechanisms but can “handle them,” and who are not prioritizing their mental health. I’m begging you to reach out and get help now, when you aren’t in imminent danger, and you work on yourself, you collect the tools that might one day save you. You might not always be able to “handle it” with the skills you have right now. A moment might one day be impossible to move through. Don’t let that happen. Sadness is a language too many of us are fluent in; and suicide is a dialect that’s east to pick up. You are capable of and worth the work. Let’s celebrate and prioritize our own responsibility to our mental health.

We are all capable of learning how to tend to ourselves, of learning how to move through pain, and make room for joy.