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It was an awful tragedy in Dallas this week when Patti Stevens, 54, 

 two weeks after a mentally ill former Texas A&M football player hacked her husband to death with a machete while he was out for an early-morning jog.

She left a note behind with biographical information for a Dallas Morning News reporter, to whom she had talked 

“Dave was the love of my life and I’m lost without him,” she said in the interview. “People need to know that this was a wonderful person going out and doing what he loved to do.”

Sharon Grigsby, a Dallas Morning News columnist and deputy editorial page editor, didn't know the couple, who had no children, for the record.

But she's angry enough by Patti's suicide that she turned in a horrific piece of work that was published this afternoon, shaming Stevens for taking her own life.

"Healthy grieving is the kind of hard work that our society wants to turn tail and run from," she writes. "In its worst manifestations, suicide seems preferable. Especially to younger Americans, who need role models doing the hard, responsible thing."

In a giant step backward for public discussions of mental health, 

It's a lot to ask of a widow in the immediate aftermath of the murder of a husband. And the "just ask for help" as a simple answer is little more than a simple answer. Lots of people who take their own lives sought help but help didn't work. That often only makes the underlying sense of failure all the more unbearable.

It's hard to see how shaming bolsters the willingness of someone to discuss their thoughts of suicide.

The response to the column took Grigsby up on her assertion.

"If your point was to encourage others to get help (rather than kill themselves), you failed," writes another. "The tone of your article is harsh and condemning - there is nothing uplifting, positive or encouraging about it. If what you truly want is to encourage those who are heavy-burdened, I encourage you to delete this article and try again."

"If it prevents one suicide, it's worth it," says another.

But more than preventing a suicide, another opinion notes, it helps a stigma to persist that keeps the issue to whispers.

The reaction to the column has been nearly unanimous in its condemnation of its author, a clear indication that in matters of mental illness and mental health, maybe we actually 

 I lost any sense of journalistic detachment when Patti Stevens mentioned me in her suicide note

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Bob Collins

Author

It was an awful tragedy in Dallas this week when Patti Stevens, 54, took her own life, two weeks  after a mentally ill former Texas A&M football player hacked her husband to death with a machete while he was out for an early-morning jog.

Columnist takes a stand on suicide, and gets it all wrong

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