This podcast touches on mental illness, depression, and suicide.

There are moments of darkness.

There are moments of lightness, too.

Please keep that in mind before you listen.

John Nelson is a guy who's probably a lot like a guy you know.

He lives in Newtown, a picturesque small town northeast of Philadelphia.

He has three kids, a loving wife, a dog, a cat, and a bearded dragon named Lizzie.

He works in marketing.

He coaches his kids in softball and hockey, and he's a ride-or-die-stealers fan.

The Nelsons are in fact so perfect that they're almost a caricature, like a sitcom family with a zany dad who's fond of the phrase,

I'm going to give you some life advice.

You know, we try to do the standard, sit down and cook together and have meals together.

We're the messy house in the neighborhood with basketballs outside,, we're constantly playing and doing stuff like

that. But, you know, truly we like to spend time together. But the view from the outside was a lot

different than what John felt on the inside. On the outside, John lived a charmed life, but inside, he had been fighting with everything

he had to stay alive for years.

I would literally read a newspaper article about a plane rack, and I would have instantaneous

like, ugh, like like why couldn't I have

been on that, right? Or, you know, somebody died in a car rack, like, why couldn't that have

been me?

John had what's called treatment-resistant depression, and it made his inner life hell.

I'd be the one standing up in front of everybody leading the champagne toast,

...