Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

Near the end of season one, I reached out to a few podcasts that I really like to see about

collaborating or maybe doing an episode swap.

And one of the podcasts I reached out to was one called Your Mental Breakdown.

And I gave them a shout out in the fishbowl at the end of season one and they're still

doing really good work.

But nothing came of that.

And then fast forward to last winter,

and I got a call from Doug Friedman,

who's the co-host and producer of Your Mental Breakdown.

And he said that he had just recently been in Colorado

doing a healing journey, and one of the things that was meaningful

to him was listening to Back from the Abyss. And he asked if he might tell his story, his

abyss story on the podcast. And as he began to describe it, I felt so honored that he was

willing and wanting to speak publicly for the first

time on this podcast. Doug has mentioned a number of times on your mental breakdown that his

wife passed away the same week in 2018, that he was diagnosed with MS. But the details of his

loss are actually much more profound and heartbreaking.

That's because Doug's beloved wife, Kim, who was also a psychotherapist.

She died by suicide when her bipolar disorder overtook her.

And as you listen to this story, it may seem like Kim's suicide comes rocketing out of nowhere,

but I think it's worth noting here that a significant percentage of completed suicides occur

...