For nearly 15 years, Lori Prichard shared a life with her husband, Travis. They were raising two children, building careers, and imagining the future most couples take for granted: growing older together, watching their children become adults, and perhaps one day becoming grandparents. What Lori did not know was that her husband was fighting a private battle with depression that he had largely kept hidden from her.
On August 16, 2019, Travis died by suicide at age 44. Lori, a television journalist with KSL in Utah, suddenly found herself grieving her husband while trying to help their children understand a loss she was struggling to comprehend herself. In the weeks that followed, she discovered something that began to answer some of the questions he could no longer answer.
Travis had been keeping journals.
Those pages revealed a side of him Lori had never fully seen. He wrote about depression, feelings of failure and the painful thoughts that seemed to challenge his sense of worth. He had a name for what was happening inside his mind: “the bully in the brain.” Lori also discovered that Travis had been researching depression extensively on their computer. He had apparently been trying to understand what was happening to him and find his own way out of it without allowing the people closest to him to know how much he was struggling.
That discovery changed the way Lori understood her husband’s final years. Travis was educated, successful and deeply involved with his family. He was a physical therapist pursuing a doctorate. He got up, went to work, cared for his children and participated in family life. Depression did not always look from the outside the way Lori had imagined it would.
There had been clues. Travis sometimes told her he felt weak or did not want to burden her. When she tried to go deeper, he often resisted talking about what he was experiencing. Lori later learned that the day before he died, Travis had spent 12 minutes speaking with the national suicide hotline. He came home afterward and said nothing about the call.
Lori and her late husband, TravisThat silence became one of the most important lessons Lori wanted other families to understand. A person can be loved deeply and still hide the extent of their suffering. Someone can continue working, parenting, laughing and functioning while experiencing serious depression. Love matters enormously, but the people who love us cannot respond to pain they cannot see.
After Travis died, Lori began speaking publicly about what happened. She did not do so to turn her husband into a cautionary tale or to invite sympathy. She wanted people struggling privately with depression to understand something Travis had found difficult to accept: needing help is not weakness. Depression deserves to be taken seriously, and seeking professional treatment should not be a source of shame.
Her message also extends to those who love someone they suspect may be struggling. Don’t dismiss concern just because someone says everything is fine. Ask questions. Listen carefully. Take troubling changes or comments seriously. Encourage professional help. Difficult conversations may feel intrusive in the moment, but silence can leave everyone trying to carry something that was never meant to be carried alone.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking insight Lori gained from Travis’s journals was how differently depression had allowed him to see himself. The husband and father his family loved did not always seem able to see his own value through their eyes. Lori has said that Travis came to believe his family would somehow be better without him. The devastation his death left behind showed how tragically distorted that belief was.
That is why her message to anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts is urgent: tell someone. Tell someone you trust what is happening, and seek professional help. Do not assume the people who love you would be better without you, and do not wait until you can explain your feelings perfectly before asking for help.
For those left behind after suicide, there is another difficult truth in Lori’s story. Survivors can spend years replaying conversations, searching for missed signs and wondering what they could have done differently. Lori herself has wrestled with those questions. Yet one person’s suicide cannot be reduced to a spouse missing the right clue or failing to say the perfect words. Depression can be serious, complex, and hidden even within loving families.
Travis’s journals gave Lori a window into a struggle she wishes he had shared while he was alive. She cannot change what happened, but by telling his story, she is doing something with the knowledge his death left behind: challenging the shame that keeps people silent.
The bully in the brain grows more dangerous when its voice is the only one being heard. Let someone else into the conversation.
If you or someone you know is in the United States and experiencing suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If there is immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.
Sherry DeMonte is a passionate writer whose work explores the quiet corners of human experience. When she’s not writing, you’ll find Sherry with a good book, wandering through vintage shops, or sipping coffee while people-watching at her favorite local café.
