The evening before my husband Franco committed suicide he was smiling in the kitchen as he made pasta with our daughter in preparation for our big Italian family reunion.
He couldn’t stop smiling. He was talking with his hands again like he used to before three years of depression turned him into a shadow of himself.
Later, he told me how much fun he had that night.
I allowed myself to hope that maybe, just maybe, he was finally overcoming the demons that had turned our once-happy lives into a constant battle against his dark moods.
‘Good night, I love you. I’ll see you in the morning.’ That’s what I said to him as we retired to our separate bedrooms. I remember those words because I will replay them in my mind over and over again for the rest of my life. They were the last words I said to him.
My husband was 56.
Franco had tried everything. Over three years he took 18 different types of antidepressants, had 96 rounds of electroshock therapy and I was by his side 24/7 until the end. He didn’t want to die – he wanted his pain to end.
It wasn’t always that way. My husband had once been the life of the party. He loved entertaining friends and family, he was a great cook and sailed on Sydney Harbour several times a week. He was a kind man with the biggest heart and the best father for our daughter Zara.
My husband Franco (centre) was always the life of the party. He loved entertaining friends and family, he was a great cook and enjoyed sailing on Sydney ‘s iconic harbour a few times a week. He was a kind man with the biggest heart and the best father to our daughter, Zara (right)
Then, one morning in March 2018, he woke up and didn’t feel like himself.
‘Something is really wrong with me, I feel disconnected to everything but I don’t know why. I’ve never felt like this before, I need to go to the doctor,’ he told me.
It was as sudden and as stark as that. There was no slow creep into melancholy. No trigger or abrupt change in our circumstances. Our marriage was fine.
I couldn’t shake the feeling how odd it was to hear Franco say those words. After all, he was the type of man you had to drag to an appointment for a blood test.
The evening before, we had been to our daughter’s school art exhibition. He loved painting so I thought he would enjoy it – but over breakfast the next day he said it didn’t spark joy like it usually would have.
I was concerned and took him to our family doctor. Rather than considering all the options, the GP prescribed him with what I call a ‘quick fix’: antidepressants.
Within two days he was feeling worse. Knowing what I do now about the side effects of antidepressants – including that they can make depression worse and cause suicidal thoughts – I never would’ve let him take them. I am convinced the drugs were a factor that sent him down the dark path from which he would never recover.
Things were so different for Franco when our paths crossed on a Friday night in 1991. Brimming with masculine confidence, he introduced himself to me at the bar. I was so shy and introverted but he was loud and had a great sense of humour. It didn’t take much convincing to go on a date with him. We simply clicked.
Franco brought out the best in people. He was always positive and gave others a second chance. He was proud of his work and dubbed the ‘best manager’ by his staff.
We lived together for five years before marrying in 1999 – one of the happiest days of my life. He loved travelling and backpacked across Europe and South America. We then moved to Queensland where Franco started a signage material business and was passionate about sales. We stayed there for nearly six years before returning to Sydney to be closer to family.
We welcomed our daughter into the world in 2009 and I became a stay-at-home mum while Franco ran the business.
All was well until that awful day in 2018 when Franco suddenly didn’t feel right within himself. Like his last words to me, I replay that morning in my head repeatedly. But I don’t believe there is anything I could have done differently. I supported him, took him to the doctor like he asked, and, for the three years that followed, offered him unconditional love.
While antidepressants work for a lot of others, I wish Franco never took them. If he’d tried a different path, I believe things would have been different.
After four weeks on that first antidepressant, I took Franco to see a psychiatrist. Shockingly they said he was ‘too far gone’ and he needed to be admitted to a mental health facility.
Franco brought out the best in people. He was always positive and gave others a second chance. The one thing he loved to make right up until the end was a great cup of coffee. He always said, ‘When I’m better, I’m going own a coffee shop’
What occurred there two weeks later was like something out of a horror movie. The doctors subjected Franco to electric-shock therapy, or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) – a medical procedure that uses electrical currents to induce the brain into a controlled seizure.
Patients are put under general anaesthetic and some only need two or three treatments before they feel like themselves again. Unfortunately for my husband, this wasn’t the case.
He went psychotic after his second ECT session and was transferred from the private hospital to a public facility and locked away for his own safety.
I wept uncontrollably and worried desperately for his future – all our futures.
I watched in silence as the orderlies removed his shoelaces, belt and any loose-fitting material. It all had to be taken away for his own safety.
He just kept saying ‘I just want to die’. It was utterly overwhelming.
Franco was in the hospital for four agonising months, although it felt like years. I visited him twice a day and watched him wallow in his own self-hatred.
I thought things couldn’t get any worse. But it was just the beginning of his psychological trauma. I would look up to the sky and pray for it to end as a tear slid down my cheek. I just wanted my husband back.
He continued ECT and had another 96 shocks to the brain, but it didn’t fix his depression. Normally one patient would only have a maximum of 12 rounds, but because he wasn’t showing signs of improvement, the only option was more ECT.
I should have stopped it, but when you’re down to your last resort, you go with it.
Remaining positive was almost unbearable but I understood this was an illness, not a choice he wanted to make. His brown eyes once so full of life turned hollow and grey. He stopped laughing at my jokes and making sarcastic remarks, he couldn’t show affection by holding my hand and struggled sleeping
Two months in I felt the need to start recording his behaviour, the changes to his medication and dosages. In addition to his worsening depression he was now suffering from short-term memory loss – a common side effect of ECT.
Thank God I started keeping a log. He would spend 19 months in and out of hospital – his longest stint being six months – but monitoring his symptoms and treatment in way helped keep me sane. ‘Staying positive’ was an unthinkable prospect, but at least I could understood this was an illness, not a choice Franco was making.
His brown eyes, once so full of life, turned hollow and grey during those terrible three years. He stopped laughing at my jokes, dropped his signature sarcasm, he couldn’t show affection, even holding my hand, and struggled with sleep.
He knew his life should be better than this and I spoke to him about all the reasons why he should stay with us. Several times he told me he ‘had a plan’. It was terrifying to know he was considering suicide.
‘Do you realise the pain you’re going to put Zara through if you do this? Do you understand what this will do to her and our family?’ I asked him.
He answered: ‘I know and I love her, but the pain is too much for me.’
When you’re in the depths of depression, the darkness is unbearable. You can’t think of anybody else; you just want the pain to end.
A lot of the time, people who are suicidal keep their thoughts to themselves and their family is left asking: why? In a way, I consider myself lucky because at least I know the reason why my husband did it.
Two years into Franco’s depression battle, and with no sign of improvement, my own psychologist even said to me: ‘We need to prepare you now for his passing’.
She knew from watching me cry so many times in her office that there wasn’t going to be a happy ending. So I started to grieve Franco a year before he took his life.
At the table I said: ‘Do you realise the pain you’re going to put Zara through if you do this? Do you understand what this will do to her and our family?’ He replied: ‘I know and I love her, but the pain is too much for me’
Franco was the best father – he would put on a happy face for our daughter, who was 11 at the time, then collapse on the couch after she went off to school. He would cuddle her, cook with her then put her to bed at night with a kiss on the forehead, even when the war in his head was raging and he struggled to show any affection.
That’s the thing about depression, it robs you of the ability to feel anything. He knew he loved us but there was no feeling, only numbness. Sometimes he would sit at the dinner table and stare blankly. He couldn’t cry or feel angry, joyed or scared. It was emptiness.
I stood by him, of course. When I said on our wedding day ‘in sickness and in health’, I meant it. Yet I know many other wives in my situation who would have left, which I understand because it’s a lot to bare.
It got to a point where we had to sleep in separate bedrooms because he would wake me in the middle of the night in a fright, saying, ‘Vanessa, I’m going to do it. I’m going to kill myself.’ Each time, I would need to talk him out of it and it became such an unbearable burden.
Other days he would beat himself up for thinking about suicide but not following through. He would come home and tell me: ‘I didn’t have the guts to do it.’
The one thing he loved to make, right up until the end, was a great cup of coffee. It somehow brought him a sense of joy.
He always said: ‘When I’m better, I’m going own a coffee shop’. When I heard those words, it reminded me there was some hope: he didn’t want to die.
Now our 15-year-old Zara is learning how to make coffee, too. The proper Italian way.
The evening before he took his own life, Franco invited his side of the family over for a big reunion dinner. Zara helped him make pasta and he enjoyed hosting everyone, just like he always did. As I headed out the door for a girls’ night I felt comfortable leaving him because, for the first time in years, he seemed like his old self.
He picked me up later that evening and told me how much he had enjoyed himself.
The next morning, I heard him creep down the stairs but I was so exhausted I didn’t stop him and went back to sleep. He would often wake up and pace around the house; he could never sit still.
I heard the front door open and close. He’s going for a walk, I thought.
About an hour later, there was a knock at the door. It was the police. The moment I saw them I instantly knew Franco was gone. Today was the day.
I felt like was going to pass out or vomit. The officers sat with me, helped get my breathing under control and spent an hour talking me through what had happened.
I was drowning in grief – but also felt a sense of relief knowing he was no longer in pain. I don’t expect others to understand this. You’ll never be able to understand it unless you’ve lived through it.
Then I arranged for Zara to see a friend; I needed time to figure out how to tell her that her father was dead.
I couldn’t cry at his funeral. My emotions were so intense I reached a place beyond tears. Some might have assumed I was cold, heartless or the reason he did it. But I had cried so much over the last three years I had already started grieving him while he was still alive.
I don’t speak about how my husband committed suicide – and I won’t today. But just know this: he didn’t want to die; he just wanted the pain to stop.
It was only later that the tears came. I called Lifeline in the middle of the night and the words ‘I’ve lost my husband’ left my mouth. Everything came flooding out. When I hung up the phone I was gasping for air.
Looking back on that terrible time, the worst part was telling our daughter. I still well up with tears talking about it today. ‘Where’s Papa?’ she asked. I had to tell her he wasn’t coming home.
When Franco took his life, some directed the blame at me.
‘You should’ve watched him. You knew he was suicidal and shouldn’t have let him go for a walk.’
Perhaps I did let my guard down, but I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. Today I know that if someone wants to go, sometimes you need to let them.
He tried everything and I stayed next to him until the end.
Even though Franco, my love, isn’t physically with us today, he’s here in spirit – and I know he’s finally at peace.
There’s photos of him all around our home, I think about the jokes he would’ve made and we still have our morning coffee together. That has never changed and never will.
If you need support or someone to talk to in a personal crisis, call Lifeline Australia anytime on 13 11 14
- As told to Carina Stathis
