An avenue for broken dreams

It’s human for us to overreact, but it can be deadly

Dec 09, 2022

In a special celebrating “Love Actually,” Diane Sawyer shows a sad scene featuring Emma Thompson and fictional husband Alan Rickman. She knows he bought a lovely necklace for Christmas, then finds out it wasn’t for her.

“The writer leaves it to each of us to answer the question: When your dreams are broken, what remains?” Sawyer says.

The same week the special came out, the parents of Katie Meyer filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stanford University. Their daughter, a star soccer player at Stanford, killed herself March 1.

I’m not trying to trivialize Meyer’s suicide or her parents’ anguish by comparing them with a Christmas movie, but I am trying to point to our collective humanity. When our dreams are broken or even threatened, it’s easy to feel alone and hopeless.

We fool ourselves in ways big and small, whether it’s Rickman’s character risking his marriage over a PG-rated fling with a flirty assistant, or the overachieving Meyer giving up on life because of a potential disciplinary action.

Worst of all, we can fool ourselves into thinking that no one appreciates what we’re going through, that we shouldn’t burden them with the details.

Let’s try a two-question, somewhat rhetorical, quiz:

If you were feeling suicidal, how many people would you ask for help? (Obviously there’s therapy and calling 988, but we’re just talking about loved ones.)
Now reverse it. How many someones could reach out to you, say they’re feeling suicidal, and you’d help in a heartbeat?

I’m guessing your second number is way bigger. By what? A factor of 10? 20? A hundred? My answer to Question 1 would be less than a handful of people. Question 2? Dozens. Even many I haven’t spoken to in years. Or decades.

That’s not noble, that’s normal. There’s a lot more George Bailey in us than we realize.

I won’t pretend to know the personal hell that Meyer was going through, but I bet dozens of George Baileys would have dived in to help: friends, family, teammates, coaches, counselors. Even if she ended up being severely disciplined by Stanford — which seems incredibly unlikely — they could have given her setback a perspective that she couldn’t.

Sometimes it takes a village to stop a suicide.

When your dreams are broken, it’s easy to see them as shattered. But here’s a second opinion: It’s probably just a fracture, like a bum arm. It hurts like hell, but you get help, give it time and it heals — maybe not as good as new, maybe different, maybe stronger.

How do you treat a fractured dream? With a cast of angels. Don’t be as stupid as I was in answering Question 1. Reach out. Lots of people — especially students and overachievers — are so worried about being seen as a burden or disappointment or failure that they don’t tell anyone about their demons.

They never learned that heartaches are often our most endearing qualities. They make us stronger. They teach us to laugh at ourselves. They give us empathy.

Now think about the people in Question 2. You’re not their guardian angel, but learn about the warning signs of suicide just in case. Check in on them. Sometimes we don’t find out what someone is going through until it’s too late.

Love will triumph over pain almost every time, if you give it time. As Thompson’s movie reminds us, “Love actually is all around.” For every owie, there’s ice cream. For every breakup, there’s a Taylor Swift song. For every Mr. Potter, there are dozens of George Baileys.

I have a feeling Katie Meyer was a George Bailey, too. But she couldn’t save herself.