Table Of ContentU.S. $24.00
“If you’ve ever asked the question ‘Do I need help?’ or ‘Does my loved one need
help?’ then read this book. merging her gut-wrenching personal story with all-pro
journalistic acumen, Sheila Hamilton gives us the who-what-where-when-why of
mental illness and what you can do to get the help you need. most of all, this
book gives us permission not to go through hardship alone, no matter what
EvEn as a rEportEr,
crises we face.”
shEila hamilton missEd
— laura munson, New York Times bestselling author of This Is Not The Story You
Think It Is and founder of Haven Writing Retreats thE signs as hEr husband
david’s mEntal illnEss
“All the Things We Never Knew is so beautiful, so raw, and so powerful. It is, in
a word, spectacular, and Sheila Hamilton is so generous and brave to share this
unfoldEd bEforE hEr.
story with the rest of the world. anyone who has struggled with mental illness—
their own, their family members’, their friends’ (which is to say, all of us)—will come By the time she had pieced together
fivE-timE Emmy winnEr
away from this deeply humane book feeling less alone.” the puzzle, it was too late. Her once bril-
shEila hamilton is the news
liant and passionate partner was dead
director and morning show co-host at —KElly williams brown, bestselling author of Adulting
the top-rated rock station in the country, within six weeks of a diagnosis of bipo-
KInK-Fm in Portland. She also serves as “Journalist Sheila Hamilton has written a bold and honest book that takes the lar disorder, leaving his nine-year-old
the public affairs director and hosts an stigma out of mental illness and explores the terrible and beautiful angles when daughter and wife without so much as a
award-winning weekend talk show. a loved one suffers from bipolar disorder. Hamilton’s reporter’s eye and lover’s note to explain his actions, a plan to
Hamilton began her career as an asso- heart give us a valuable perspective on how the grip of this insidious disease
help them recover from their profound
ciate producer for public broadcasting, can destroy families and lives . . . Hamilton’s story is not only a cautionary tale
grief, or a solution for the hundreds
and spent nearly two decades reporting, but another example of the resiliency within all of us, and our ability to make the
of thousands of dollars in debt that they
anchoring, and producing commercial choice to heal.”
television for aBc affiliates in Salt lake would inherit from him.
— lEE woodruff, bestselling author of In An Instant and Perfectly Imperfect, and
city and Portland. She was recently voted All the Things We Never Knew takes
contributing reporter for CBS This Morning
oregon’s Best Radio Personality. She readers on a breathtaking journey, from
writes cover stories for About Face maga-
David and Sheila’s early romance through
“one of the most candid, heart-wrenching, and deeply moving accounts of the
zine and serves on the boards of Girls Inc.,
the last three months of their life together
wake of destruction caused by the suicide of a loved one . . . the book casts the
an organization empowering girls to be
dark shadow that is depression, then rises from such darkness, reminding us to and into the year after his death. It details
strong, smart, and bold, and of the Flawless
‘look to the living, love them, and hold on.’ Finally, it gives survivors tremendous their unsettling spiral from ordinary life
Foundation, a mental health advocacy
resolve to continue in their quest for prevention.” into the world of mental illness, examines
organization.
— KEvin hinEs, author of Cracked, Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt the fragile line between reality and
madness, and reveals the true power of
sEal prEss
978-1-58005-584-0 love and forgiveness.
a memBeR oF tHe PeRSeuS BooKS GRouP
52400
DIStRIButeD By PuBlISHeRS GRouP WeSt
SealPReSS.com
JacKet DeSIGn By Faceout StuDIo, DeReK tHoRnton
coveR ImaGe © tIm DanIelS/aRcanGel 9 781580 055840
autHoR PHoto © DeneB catalan SHeIl aHamIlton.com
All-the-Things-We-Never-Knew-DJ-MECH.indd 1 6/23/15 4:00 PM
A ll t h e
Th i n g s
We N e v e r
K n e w
AllTheThings-interior.indd 1 6/25/15 4:28 PM
Copyright 2015 Sheila Hamilton
Seal Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
1700 Fourth Street
Berkeley, California
sealpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief
excerpts in connection with a review. Some names and indentifying details have changed
to protect the privacy of individuals.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978-1-58005-584-0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover design by Faceout Studio, Derek Thornton
Interior design by Tabitha Lahr
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
AllTheThings-interior.indd 2 6/25/15 4:28 PM
A l l t h e
T h i n g s
N e v e r
W e
K n e w
SHEILA HAMILTON
AllTheThings-interior.indd 3 6/25/15 4:28 PM
AllTheThings-interior.indd 4 6/25/15 4:28 PM
To Sophie—your willingness to lovingly embrace things
just as they are allowed us all to move forward
AllTheThings-interior.indd 5 6/25/15 4:28 PM
AllTheThings-interior.indd 6 6/25/15 4:28 PM
Introduction
I missed much of the unfolding of my husband’s mental illness. By
the time I’d pieced together the puzzle of who David actually was, he
was falling apart. My once brilliant, intense, and passionate partner
was dead within six weeks of a formal diagnosis of bipolar disorder,
leaving my nine-year-old daughter and me without so much as a
note to understand his decision. He’d left us hundreds of thousands
of dollars in debt and with no plan for helping us recover from the
profound grief of his suicide.
David’s employees never called to tell me he wasn’t showing up
at the job sites where his company was remodeling high-end resi-
dences and commercial businesses. By the time David experienced
his first full-blown manic episode, we’d already been keeping sepa-
rate bank accounts and separate lives. He isolated himself from me
with lies and infidelity. I returned the salvo, alienating myself from
him by pretending I didn’t hurt.
David’s parents may have known about his struggle with mental
illness, but they never let on.
Mental illness, unlike breast cancer, isn’t celebrated with big
marches or pink ribbons. The stigma is stifling, and it prevents most
people from seeking help. David refused to accept the label of bipo-
lar disorder. He could not imagine a life of medications and therapy,
AllTheThings-interior.indd 7 6/25/15 4:28 PM
viii ❘
All the Things We Never Knew
which had helped him so little. David’s path is not unique. Suicide
is now the tenth most common cause of death for men and women.
Every thirteen minutes, another American dies from suicide. What
could we have done differently? What should we have known? Ac-
cording to a 2008 report by the National Institute of Mental Health,
research shows that risk factors for suicide include depression and
other mental disorders and substance abuse disorders (often in com-
bination with other mental disorders). More than 90 percent of the
people who die by suicide have those risk factors.
It is my belief that many people could benefit from hearing more
about how psychiatric conditions unfold. In the years, months, and
days leading up to David’s death, I didn’t classify him as mentally ill.
I missed many signs. I ignored others, believing it could get better.
And I scrambled, as the world came crashing down around us, just
to maintain my own sanity and the health of my daughter.
Our daughter celebrates her birthday each June. I can’t help but
measure her birthdays with an equal sense of apprehension and ela-
tion. She’s a teenager now, and still no signs of the brooding, the po-
larity, the darkness that descended on David like Portland’s thick gray
clouds in January, refusing to budge. Yes, she has his intellect, but she
also has my relatively sunny nature. She is physically stunning with
long, muscular legs and a waist that defies her voracious appetite. She
has David’s European cheekbones. The color of her skin is his. Her
ears have the same shape. There are times I find myself staring at one
of her features for too long. She bats me away: “Mom, enough.”
But David’s genetics also carry a downside. “There’s a 50 percent
chance your daughter will present with the same disorder,” a well-
meaning psychologist once advised. “It is most common between the
ages of sixteen and twenty-one.”
I knew the statistical odds by heart. After David’s death, I’d
read every book I could get my hands on about bipolar disorder.
I’d measured the likelihood of a gene mutation against the things I
could influence—what she ate, how much sleep and exercise she got,
the unconditional love that I gave her.
AllTheThings-interior.indd 8 6/25/15 4:28 PM
SHEILA HAMILTON ❘ ix
But the genetic risk of mental illness is such that my daughter is
keenly aware of what she can’t do. She understands heavy drinking
would kill brain cells that she may need to rely on for higher func-
tioning. She’ll never be able to safely experiment with drugs. It’s a
burden a teenager shouldn’t have to take on, but more than half of
people with bipolar disorder commit suicide. The numbers are in-
tractable, unchangeable. Read fifteen studies and the numbers come
up consistently grim.
And yet, there is much to celebrate.
There have been tremendous breakthroughs in brain science
from 2005 to 2015. The ability of scientists to study aberrations in
MRI imaging has led to new thinking about the treatment for brain
disorders. The work of Dr. Bruce Perry at the Child Trauma Acad-
emy in Houston, Texas, is focused on brain disorders in children,
but the applications may also be relevant to adult populations.
When children are subjected to abuse, neglect, absent parenting,
or drug and alcohol exposure, brain development can be severely
stunted. Perry’s ability to define treatment based on the child’s cur-
rent brain functioning is of particular interest to me, since I watched
my husband’s behavior regress to that of a child during his hospital-
ization. I had no context at the time for understanding exactly what
was happening to him, or to me.
If I were faced with the same predicament today, I would force-
fully advocate for the type of care Perry has successfully practiced:
the neurosequential model of therapeutics (NMT), which is a
sensitive, neurobiologically informed approach to clinical work.
NMT helps match the nature and timing of specific therapeutic
techniques to the development of the patient. This research was
not available ten years ago and is only now starting to be practiced
in some mental health facilities.
NMT’s reliance on somatosensory activities like music, move-
ment, yoga, and therapeutic massage allows healing at the most el-
ementary level. A traumatized brain is incapable of processing the
subtleties of group therapy. It is impossible to ask people who have
AllTheThings-interior.indd 9 6/25/15 4:28 PM
