She described the positive shift change she’s seen in the Jewish community’s approach to suicide and mental health just two months ago, she worked with an Orthodox family whose son died by suicide they sat shiva and the community was very supportive, she said. I think that’s what people need to understand you just don’t know what people are going through.” He doesn’t fit the mold of someone who is going through depression and suicidal ideation. “I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions, people think, oh, he’s going to Harvard Law School and people love him. “You would never ever know he was going through such a tough time, and I think that’s what’s so heartbreaking,” said Miriam Arment, founder of No Shame on U, a Jewish nonprofit which advocates for normalizing discussion of mental illness. This is why the congressman’s open and loving declaration of his son’s struggles was so moving for many in the Jewish community, as was his unambiguous description of Tommy’s depression as an illness, a “relentless torture of the brain,” instead of something shameful. Thankfully, there are also rulings decreeing that suicide “by compulsion,” which includes mental illnesses, should be mourned fully today, that category includes the vast majority of deaths by suicide. Suicide was seen as knowingly taking a life, which removes God’s power to decree life and death, and a violation against the exhortation to preserve life, pikuach nefesh. Historically, Judaism took a hard-line stance against suicide, forbidding mourners from sitting shiva and sectioning the graves off from the rest of the graveyard. This outpouring of support is a sign of how far the discourse around mental health and suicide has come in Jewish circles. “May his memory be a blessing,” resounded around Twitter as the eulogy was shared widely. The heartbreaking tribute by Raskin and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, hit a nerve. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, wrote in a statement published on Medium that his son “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.’” On New Year’s Eve, it became too hard Tommy Raskin died by suicide. They thought they were going to die.Tommy Raskin was, by all accounts, a deeply empathetic individual, whether fighting on behalf of humans or animals. He said his daughter and son-in-law were locked together in an office, “hiding under the desk, placing what they thought were their final texts and whispered phone calls to say their goodbyes. Raskin then described the terror he felt as the legislatures were instructed to put on gas masks following the breach, and insurrectionist began to bang loudly on the doors to the room they were in. And they asked me directly, would it be safe? Would it be safe? And I told them, of course, it should be safe. “And they said they heard that President Trump was calling on his followers to come to Washington to protest. It was our constitutional duty and I invited them instead to come with me to witness this historic event, the peaceful transfer of power in America,” said Raskin. “I told them I had to go back to work because we were counting electoral votes that day on January 6. Raskin’s youngest daughter, 24-year-old Tabitha Raskin, and his oldest daughter’s husband accompanied Raskin to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection, wanting to provide support following the funeral. “Of all the terrible, brutal things I saw and I heard on that day and since then, that one hit me the hardest.” “She said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol,'” Raskin said, stumbling over his words and pinching his nose in an attempt to not cry. It was remembering his daughter’s reaction to the violence that nearly brought the congressman to tears. While Raskin had buried his 25-year-old son Tommy Raskin the previous day, who had taken his own life on New Year’s Eve, Raskin’s choked words were not about that specific tragedy. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) recounted the tragedy of his son’s death and subsequent events during former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Tuesday.Īs Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, concluded the first round of arguments in the attempt to convict Trump, he opted to tell a personal story from the day of the Jan.
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