Andrea Gunning

I was going crazy and I was an embarrassment.

I was isolating myself from my friends, thinking that they didn't have the best intentions for me.

And I worried that I would be that failure like my dad was believed to be.

her dad couldn't outrun his mental health struggles.

And maybe Saskia was destined for the same.

As Saskia pushed her friends away, they knew she'd always have Mike.

So as they became more and more concerned, they went to him.

They tried to get him to talk to Saskia about her drinking and her meds.

Every time he assured them he had everything under control.

As Heather recalls, he seemed like everything was fine.

Then came October 27th, 2018.

It had been two years since Saskia and Mike's wedding, three years since our health took a turn for the worse.

My friend Allison was having a Halloween party and my sister was nice enough to have the kids for a sleepover over her house.

Allison's house was done up for the occasion.

There were themed snacks, a photo wall, and everyone went all out with their costumes.

I was a cowgirl and Mike was a cowboy.

Pretty generic.

But I still had some remnants of a black eye.

And, you know, a lot of people asked me about it and I kind of just said, I don't know how, but I think that I fell and I'm okay.

After her last fall, everyone was on high alert around Saskia.