Two Years On: An Unintended Education in Suicide

It's been two years since Zach died—March 26. We found him on March 27.

Post-fact I've become somewhat of an expert on suicide. Information that would have come in damn good handy while he was still alive. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

In the time since, I’ve read and watched more about suicide than I ever imagined—academic lectures and talks on YouTube, research papers, articles, reddit forums. I listened to a podcast episode with Melissa Rivers talking about losing her dad, Joan Rivers' husband, to suicide. I joined a monthly zoom chat for women who were suicide loss survivors. That in itself was a lesson in humanity—there are many broken people out there and they're not afraid to buck polite society. I left the group after one too many sessions of participants breaking down, sobbing over the untimely deaths of their uncle, niece, son-in-law, or an online friend they'd never met in person. I'd lost my beloved partner -- it felt different -- and I didn't have the emotional bandwidth for such pile on. 

Part of my healing process around Zach's death was to search for explanations as to why someone so intelligent and learned would willingly do this to himself. I was looking for patterns, clues, intel that might help me understand what drove him to see ending his life as the solution. As I've heard it said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Becoming 'intellectual' about it, gave me an anchor to the pain—this was a puzzle to be solved. I needed to learn as much as I could about suicide, its triggers and warning signs, to help me work my way through the overbearing reality that he wasn't coming back. Lady Macbeth says, “What’s done is done and cannot be undone.”

Many of the facts I learned were parallel to Zach’s story.

It’s often said—something I learned through American academic psychologist and leading expert on suicide, Dr. Thomas Joiner’s work—that around 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosed or diagnosable mental health condition. Zach had been diagnosed with OCD at 24 years old. His condition was managed with a therapist who specialized in OCD cases, and Prozac. While Zach continued therapy, he just suddenly stopped taking Prozac one day, about six months before he died. This in my view, precipitated his fast descent into paranoia and delusion.

Alcohol is another factor that shows up frequently in research—used, often, as a way to numb or quiet an anxious mind. I learned more about this through Joiner’s lectures which were available on YouTube, and I even arranged a call with Dr. Joiner to talk about Zach's suicide, which he graciously made time for (as did some others.)

Zach was prone to drink in excess. He even penned a short story, called 'Another Glass', about a lawyer who had a propensity to day drink amidst his lawyering. It's really rather wonderful, and though readers would assume the protagonist is autobiographical, he claims it wasn't. As part of the OCD, Zach had high anxiety. Alcohol generally worked to pacify his racing thoughts, but many people were concerned about the extent of his drinking. In the end, he was concerned too—he believed it might always have a grip on him. Another thing he fretted over, and no doubt something that fed the belief that death was the only release.

Towards the end, during our vacation in Hawaii in December 2023, Zach would start the mornings with a beer or two while I went off to buy a coffee. He was a mental mess on that last vacation. It was during this time that I saw him act out violently towards himself. After receiving distressing but fixable news about his mother’s care, he spiraled. He got down on his knees and began banging his head hard against the floor. I was aghast. The floor was just a thin layer of carpet over concrete.

“What are you doing?” I said, incredulous.

It was one of a handful of times I'd seen him act out from feeling sheer terror. This latest episode of self sabotage sent shockwaves through me.

Zach was crippled by his life situation—losing his father to Parkinson’s disease in October 2022, and being thrust into the role of caring for his ailing mother who had Parkinson's dementia, while overseeing the affairs of a considerable family trust. The weight of it all was immense.

And yet—what is also true —is that many people who struggle with alcohol are completely sober at the moment they take their life. I ordered Zach’s report from the coroner's office. I also spoke directly with both the medical examiner and the coroner —the latter confirming there was no alcohol present. His blood alcohol level was zero. Dr. Joiner has theories on why this is—longterm problem drinkers who are sober at the time they end their lives—it's for pragmatic reasons best not shared for the faint-hearted.

In the United States, over 49,000 people die by suicide each year, making it one of the leading causes of death. Men account for nearly 80% of those deaths, with particularly high rates among men under 35. Zach was 34. Globally, suicide accounts for roughly 1 in every 100 deaths. There are myriad factors that can converge—mental health, substance use, acute anxiety, grief, responsibility—and yet even knowing all of this, suicide is difficult to predict in any one individual.

I learned these things too late.

I share them now in the off chance that my learning might help someone else—whether that’s recognizing patterns, asking one more question, or simply taking something seriously that might otherwise be brushed aside.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it were as easy as, “Don’t do it,” to stop someone from taking their own life?

My friend and former neighbor Harrington and I did exactly that—two days before Zach died.

A friend in Melbourne had called me to tell me that someone in our extended circle had taken his own life. When she shared the news, I felt a sense of dread—like it wouldn’t be long before my own world was touched in the same way.

I told Zach. I said, “Look at the destruction. Look at the despair. Look at how devastated people are hearing this news. You won’t do that, will you? You can’t—too many people love you.”

Harrington and I told him how important his life was, how much he mattered.

“Yes, yes,” Zach said. “No, I won’t do that…”

And still, we lost him.

Sometimes love, logic, and pleading are not enough to override what someone is experiencing internally and believe to be true. It's also common for suicidal people to oscillate between wanting to live and wanting to die. He'd said to me on previous occasions about me, and his friends -- "You/they helped save a life." (his life) And that he had come to see, "Suicide is not an option." -- Yet here we are.

Suicide is brutal. It's raw. It’s harrowing and suicidal ideation is insistent it's completed. Sadly suicide has been with us for as long as humanity itself. In biblical accounts, Judas is described as having died by hanging. But one can't guarantee death is the end to one's existence. Zach himself wrestled with what would/could happen once he'd died, sharing his thoughts on the 'Suicide Watch' Reddit forum (which he one day out of the blue confessed he'd been reading). I once heard a story about a Buddhist monk who took his own life, and when another monk sought guidance, the master said: right about now, he’s learning that death is no escape. 

What I know now is this:

If someone shares suicidal thoughts—if they say they intend to harm themselves (Zach did), or even hint at it—take them at their word. Take it seriously.

Engage professional help immediately. I didn’t have legal standing, and his mother was not mentally equipped to intervene. It's a tragedy his dad was no longer around, as Zach's parents had experienced this with him before, 10 years before suicide took hold. And they took emergency action. If I had my chance again, I would have pushed his therapist harder to get him back on Prozac -- and pressed his cousin (Zach's next of kin, given his mother was medically incapacitated) to exert her legal rights around his medical care.

Do not hope it will pass on its own. Suicidal ideation takes hold in a way that barrels towards tragedy fast. As I look back, it informs death is imminent. Treating people this unwell requires sustained, professional intervention.

Family and friends, it turns out, are not always enough. 

But we're the ones left behind...and one by one we pick up the pieces from the 'wreckage' of death. 

All I can do now is miss him, remember him, rejoice in the blessings he brought into my life, and so many others -- and go on loving him.

RIP Zachary James Ritter.

Obit: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/glendale-ca/zachary-ritter-11749247

Finally Laid to Rest

Though my boyfriend died in March 2024, it wasn’t until last Friday that we laid his cremains to their final resting place. The delay wasn’t my choice; I’m not responsible for his estate. As Zach said to me about two weeks before he died, “In the eyes of the law, we’re strangers.”

Zach’s mother, Susan, died in November 2025 after an eight-year diagnosis of Parkinson’s, which progressed to Parkinson’s dementia. Her memorial was on Friday. Susan’s death was the catalyst for the Ritter family trust executor to inter Zach’s ashes. He and his parents' cremains were interred together after Susan's service, in a niche at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Across the way from Zach’s now permanent “home” is Marilyn Monroe’s crypt. He and I visited it together a few years ago. An adjacent neighbor to the Ritter family's niche is that of a Japanese woman who lived to 105. Her plaque lists the secret to her longevity: sweet potato, and a couple of other tips I can’t remember.

I ate sweet potato for dinner that night.

Zach’s death makes me think of the saying, the good die young. But there are still plenty of us here who could qualify as good. Why Zach left us at 34, and the Japanese woman lived three times that long, is a mystery that I suspect we'll never know the answer.

Where I once looked across at Zach at restaurant tables—we dined out often, spent thousands wining and dining—I’m now mostly confined to the cheap, but good, grocer Trader Joe’s, budgeting out of frugal necessity. Expensive dinners out are now long gone. The home I thought I’d be sharing with Zach has become a money pit I’m trying to survive alone. I closed on it two weeks after Zach’s sudden death, unable to walk away without forfeiting a $22,000 earnest deposit. At the time, I hoped Zach would come and live with me there and help shoulder some of the costs. But it was never meant to be.

Instead of spending time with my “living, breathing organism,” as I used to affectionately call him, I will now spend what physical time I can with Zach sitting on a stoop opposite his plaque in a cemetery.

On Sunday during my visit (following Friday's service), a group of Armenians brought flowers to a nearby grave. One man posed for a photo beside the woman’s headstone; I assumed he was her husband. Later, after they moved on, I went to look. It was the grave of a famous singer of over four decades. I texted Zach’s cousin, his next of kin, to tell her the Ritter family were resting near a Persian diva, and that they’d never be short of residual social company from her throng of visiting fans.

After Susan’s memorial service on Friday—Ben Marcus, one of Zach’s childhood friends, noticed that the Ritter family niche was near the grave of Ray Bradbury, the science fiction author. “Zach would like that,” he said. 

At the same time, Zach’s friend Josh poured the remainder of his beer into the dirt opposite their niche. What is he doing? I thought, until he said, “Pouring one out for you, Zach.”

Zach loved to drink. To excess, some would say. He would have liked Josh's gesture.

Before visiting the cemetery on Sunday, I dropped in to see our friend [Michael] Harrington at his home in West Hollywood. I was talking about my intention to visit Zach that afternoon when my phone flashed 11:11.

“Zach says hi, Harrington,” I said. "He's letting us know he's with us, and knows we're talking about him." Zach liked Harrington alot. It’s my belief that Zach sends me 1:11 and 11:11 often. For those of us who believe it, those numbers are spiritual signals.

Zach and I once read from my late paternal grandmother’s Shakespeare book to my grandparents' gravesite during a visit to my hometown of Adelaide, Australia (first two pictures below).

Now I was reading Zach’s own book—Bell Street Burning—the one he labored over for six years and never lived to see published—to him and his parents at his gravesite.

Photos:

1. The plaques for Zach's parents, Jim and Susan, and Zach.

2. One of the Ritter family's cemetery neighbors is the gravesite of a famous Persian singer

3. Family and friends gather around for the internment of the Ritter family's cremains

4. Zach's urn. His cousin, Eli, was his next of kin and kept Zach's urn in her home until Friday. I borrowed it a couple of months ago to have with me for the weekend!

5. Zach reading from my paternal grandmother's book of Shakespeare at my grandpa and grandma's gravesite in Adelaide, Australia (September 2023).

6. I read to them too. ^^

7. Zach's friend Aatif kindly took it upon himself to get Zach's book, Bell Street Burning, published posthumously. Here it sits among other titles on a bookstore bookshelf in Culver City. I read from it to the Ritter family on Sunday.