He doesn’t answer his father’s call, the man commits suicide. Son: “My biggest regret”

Chris Door was at work when he got that call from his dad. The 20-year-old declined, thinking she would call her parents later that day. But when she did, she got no response. “The next morning I got another call, but it wasn’t my dad, it was my stepmother to tell me he’s been missing since last night,” Chris recalls to Metro.co.uk.

“I left my home in Biggin Hill with my brother and 18-year-old girlfriend for Staplehurst, Kent, where my father lived. But just 10 minutes into the journey, my phone rang again. Our 44-year-old father was found dead. It was the worst imaginable result”, admits the English boy today.

Later, Chris discovered that his father suffered from a mental illness that the children knew almost nothing about. It’s been 10 years since then. That missed call marked his life, so much so that today he works to spread awareness about mental illness and depression to help others like his father.

“We later found out that my father had serious financial problems, which he kept a secret. He was divorced from my mother, so he had six children to support,” says Chris. The day he died, a crane hit his new car. “For my father, who was already on his last legs, it was the classic spilled the vase’ set off a chain reaction,” says Chris.

I’ll never know if he planned it over a long period of time or if it was a momentary decision.”

The hardest thing for Chris was accepting that his father suffered from depression: a problem that the man always hid. “On the surface he always seemed upbeat, wherever he went he was the life of the party. He made family gatherings fun and always had a smile on his face. He was a brilliant father to all his children and his two stepchildren.”

Only after the tragic act did the children find some writings that the man had left for them: many unknown details, his problems and his negative thoughts emerged: “He was convinced that without him we would be better off, that this was the best decision for his family Chris explains.

Even though I’ve come to terms with my father’s death, my biggest regret in life is not returning that phone call so I could tell him how much I love him and that we would have helped him with whatever he was struggling with.”

Chris (today) with his partner and daughter

Now, the 30-year-old is involved in spreading awareness about issues related to depression and mental health: “If my father had spoken about it openly, we could have helped him, maybe things would have turned out differently. help”.