
Lincoln Andrews
Life seemed as good as it gets in early 2021, with a happy family, a job I loved, and a long-desired move out of the Bible Belt to the Pacific Northwest.
My world split open on September 12th, when my son Josh took his life.
Once a film critic, I now write to make sense of the new world I find myself in, to remember my beautiful boy and to help myself heal. I draw from 28 years’ experience as a psychiatrist, but I mainly write as a dad who misses his boy. Hopefully, other secular suicide survivors (and those who love them) will find my words useful.
Follow Lincoln on Facebook at facebook.com/lincolnandrewsB612 and Twitter @LincolnAndrew10
(Lincoln Andrews is a pseudonym, used not out of shame, but for professional privacy. Everything else is true and honest to the best of my ability.)

Peter Weir’s ‘Fearless’: Grief, the superpower nobody wants
Reading Time: 5 minutes Jamie Raskin’s got it. Nick Cave, too. I’ve got it. And…

When absence outweighs presents: Grief and the holidays
Reading Time: 5 minutes “Nothing is something, where something is meant to be.” Nick Cave wrote those lyrics for Ghosteen, his…

Marking one year without my son: Coping with death anniversaries
Reading Time: 5 minutes This entire column, not just this entry, merits a content warning. I write about suicide, depression, post-traumatic…

‘On Consolation’: Comfort for nonbelievers from great thinkers
Reading Time: 4 minutes As an omnivorous reader, I unconsciously categorize my books: the ones I quit partway through, those I…

Speaking of suicide: How institutions help people and save lives
Reading Time: 7 minutes As soon as I finished Ann Herrold’s OnlySky column on suicide and psychiatric care, I knew I…

Disbelieve as you grieve: Rejecting the Almighty God of Mental Illness
Reading Time: 4 minutes Imagine no mental illness It isn’t hard to do No suicide, no grieving And no hospitals, too…

Religious toxicity and grief: When to ignore, when to retaliate
Reading Time: 6 minutes After my son’s suicide, I was unprepared for the religious toxicity spewed my way. At first, I…

Dilemmas in suicide’s aftermath: How far to dig for the irrational why?
Reading Time: 4 minutes This is a heavier column than usual, so I’m opening with a content warning. If you are…

Dilemmas in suicide’s aftermath: To disclose or not to disclose?
Reading Time: 4 minutes In the days and weeks after my son Josh took his life, I was faced with several…

Mourning and remembrance without an afterlife safety net
Reading Time: 6 minutes I’m afraid of forgetting. Terrified, even. There’s a reason for my athazagoraphobia. With the unspoken rule of…
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