The Raskins described the joy they felt as parents as they watched their son, a second-year student at Harvard Law School and a graduate of Amherst College, "follow his own piercing moral and intellectual insights looking for answers to problems of injustice, poverty and war." Jamie Raskin (D-Md. "He hated cliques and social snobbery, never had a negative word for anyone but tyrants and despots, and opposed all malicious gossip, stopping all such gossipers with a trademark Tommy line - 'forgive me, but it's hard to be a human.' " Next time you’re tempted to think of someone as ‘having it all’, please stop and consider that appearances are often deceiving and we won’t ever accomplish meaningful intimacy with one another if conversations about emotional suffering continue to be silenced by a society that prefers to pretend it does not exist.Įlsie Ramsey was born in California and moved all around the country growing up.In their essay Monday, the Raskins detailed Tommy Raskin's lifelong penchant for helping others, describing him as a "daring outspoken defender of all outcasts and kids in trouble" who "always made time for the loneliest kids in class" at every stage of life.ĭuring his high school prom, the Raskins wrote, Tommy Raskin "threw a dinner party for 24 fellow students, including classmates who had no date that evening, and they all went to prom together as a group." ‘Despite very fine doctors and a loving family and friendship network of hundreds, who adored him beyond words and whom he adored too, the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last for our dear boy, this young man of surpassing promise to our broken world.’
Describing their son’s wealth of resources, they wrote: We fight our battles heroically in doctor’s offices, out in the world and in the private moments when depression robs us of human connection and community.Īt the end of their tribute, Mr Raskin’s parents made a very important point and I’m so glad they did. I know there’s a great big army of depressed people who go through life passing for ‘normal’. I’ve ‘come out of the closet’ and encouraged others to publicly share their pain as well. Which is why I’ve been working so hard to fight stigmatisation for the last several years. Jamie Raskin of Maryland talked with NPR about his sons life and the outpouring of tributes to him. In mourning the loss of Mr Raskin, I’ve been thinking about how all this perseverance and concealment must take a tremendous toll on top of the damage already inflicted by the illness. On New Years Eve, 25-year-old Tommy Raskin killed himself. I don’t drink at all anymore, but from adolescence all the way to 35 I consumed a lot without passing out or experiencing loss of memory. And again, I could conceal an over-reliance on booze in social settings very competently. But so was almost everyone else at those gatherings. At work, in college, and at cocktail parties (though if you looked closely, you might notice I was drinking a bit too much). Like many of us, somewhere along the line, I became highly skilled at hiding my pain. Right now I’m in graduate school at Hopkins and have always done pretty well in school, with the exception of becoming a high school dropout for a modelling career that took me abroad.Īnyone who has lived with me, been a close friend or therapist of mine, knows intimately how much I struggle with feelings of failure, self-loathing, and overall sadness.Įveryone else seems extremely surprised when I mention my history of depression. I’ve never lost functionality or needed hospitalisation. I have, however, plugged along through a life clouded by depression that emerged around eighth grade. I’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting into Harvard Law School and was never a child who taught friends the names of the Supreme Court Justices like Mr Raskin, who did both.
Speaking from experience, depression isn’t a disease that universally drives its victims into bed for extended periods or forces inpatient hospitalisations. I’d like to take this moment to point out that many people who suffer from chronic depression manage to live outwardly successful lives, despite assumptions to the contrary. From his parent’s fiercely loving tribute, published on Medium, it sounds like Tommy Bloom Raskin was an unusually accomplished and big-hearted young man.
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