Barbara Dreaver

There's my family and his son and his mum and stepdad.

There's other people involved who I had to consider and just to go blindly writing about something because it makes me do whatever.

The other thing was, and this is the thing I've really grappled with and I haven't really talked about either, is I didn't,

want my book to be focused on that, on my brother's death.

I didn't want to use his death to sell my book.

And I felt really strongly about that.

And so that's been a tough one.

And just before my book came out, I went through this agony, you know, and sort of, am I doing the right, have I done the right thing, like including him in

But it is because his death made me stronger and I know he'd be so proud of me, you know, but yeah, he took his life and I think for a lot of parents and siblings and loved ones, you know, yeah.

suicide leaves a trail of guilt and as well as the grief that you get with losing any loved one there's an there's added layers of complication and the grief and it goes along with the you know guilt and you always think I did I do enough and you go over the last conversation you go over the last time you saw that person and you

and what could I have done differently?

And, you know, there are things that I feel I could have done differently, even to this day, and that is just something that you wear.

And I think it's made me stronger.

And also when I'm dealing with loss, you know, parents who've lost a child, which I've had to do quite a bit of,

It's given me strength and also the skills I think to deal with that so that I'm very cautious about not using parents and just throwing them on the television because it's going to make my story better.

to actually making sure that there's a reason why we are doing this.

Because I've been there.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Out of a club no one wants to belong to.