Latest / Did I Write That?! / "Thank God I Failed": About the Book
Transcript
- Adina Samuels: You're listening to Did I Write That? Featuring conversations with authors published under Entre Shah Press. They share the behind the scenes of the actual writing of the book, the things they wish they'd known, and what you need to know about the book that will soon be in your hands. I'm Adina Samuels, founder of Entre Shah Press, and I'm thrilled to introduce you to our newest author. Let's get to it. Orlando, welcome. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. Thank you. A pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you. So before we start talking about your book, ⁓ can you introduce yourself to our listeners? My name well, thank you, ⁓ for the opportunity. My name is Orlando da Silva. I'm a father of ⁓ three daughters. I like to start with that because ⁓ that I see is my biggest and most important role in my life. But apart from that, I'm also a lawyer. For thirty years, spending twenty-five of those as a trial lawyer, part of it as a prosecutor in the private and public sector. And currently I'm the s the chief executive officer of the Administrative Tribunal Support Service of Canada, which helps operate ⁓ roughly 14 tribunals, federal tribunals across the country. I'm a former president of the Ontario Bar Association and a former Adventure of the Law Society of Ontario. And now what can we add to that list of credentials? A bad violinist, a bad charcoal drawer, a bad chess player, ⁓ you know, all of those things. And an outstanding memoirist, if I may. Thank you. An author. Yeah, that's why we're here today. We're talking about your book, Thank God I Failed: A Lawyer's Suicide Attempt and the Case Against Trying. I have my own version of how you came to actually write this book, but I'd love to hear yours first. So what made you sit down and write your story? You did basically. So you know, in some r I've always wanted to write something, but doubted that I could do it. And there's always something more important to do. I've been advocating for mental wellness in high stakes professions now. since I was since I was president of the OBA about ten years ago, where I first revealed having regard to the new platform I had, where I first revealed a secret I've been keeping for almost ⁓ forty years. And that is to say that since I've been at least since I've been nine years old, I suffer from major depression, which has proven to be treatment resistant and my I bottomed out in two thousand and eight and attempted suicide, which resulted in a six month hospital stay. All of that was secret until twenty fourteen. And at that time, you know, struggling with the thought of how to make my one year term meaningful I I could not avoid the conclusion that this was the best way. And and so but I what I mean by that is the best way is to as president and as an established lawyer to say suffer from this, but I've I've still managed to have a meaningful professional and personal life. And so can you if you suffer from it. And we should start talking about it and caring for each other and be more compassionate and and and ⁓ you know don't necessarily take the mic and announce it in front of a crowd like I'm doing. I wouldn't recommend it. But in any event, you know, let's let's put it out there. And so maybe if if you do that, if you see me doing this and I don't get know, my my career doesn't end instantly, then maybe you can pick up the phone or whatever and talk to somebody. But the help that you need. Because if you're like me, you're afraid to disclose it. You're afraid of the stigma. You're afraid that people would think as a trial lawyer you weren't strong, there's nothing cries out weakness more than ⁓ the vulnerability or depression, anxiety, the inability to deal with it on your own. So I'd been doing that for ten years and afterwards mostly because people wanted to hear me talk about it and ⁓ i the reaction afterwards was often a standing ovation, which still surprises me, but also more importantly, a long list of people who wanted to talk, some to say me too, or I lost my brother, you know, my daughter. Can you help me understand what happened? What can I do to help? How can I help myself? You know, how do you like there were so many, many people who experienced the same sort of things that wanted to know, you know, from someone who understood ⁓ or wanted someone to who understood to listen to them. So in in engaging in all of these speaking opportunities, you created a space for people to feel like they could share their similar situations with you, perhaps with others. How does the book kind of complement that approach or that attempt to get more people talking? Yeah. So That's what I was I was I was heading toward is that, you know, the ten years of that advocacy and speaking led me to think that maybe I should leave something more permanent, something that can be, you know, referred to in the quiet of your own home, that tells a fuller story of of why that may that Others people may see themselves in the book and see similar obstacles and not feel that they're necessarily impediments to your dreams, your aspirations. So I always wanted to accomplish that, but I I didn't know how to approach it and whether I had the ability to do it. And ⁓ that's where you helped me a great deal, Adina, is is ⁓ you you you created ⁓ a blueprint af after we had our first ⁓ conversation and then I found when I started writing, having also kept journals way back to nineteen eighty six, that the book was somehow always there. Just needed a way to come out. And I was inspired by your suggestion to read Victor Frankel's Search for Meaning and and not probably one of the only people in the world who hadn't ran Search for Meaning, who hadn't heard of the book. And so I thought so, yeah. I I read it very ⁓ quickly in both official languages. Just to make sure you really understood it. Yeah. And listen to also an audio version of it. So I love the the the style of it and try to emulate some of it because well the sort of the detachment from the the personal pain of it. So you know, but I kind of removed myself from a story about myself in a way, if that makes any sense. I Certainly I'm the narrator of the story and it's about me. I I took from his ⁓ his method of writing that it can land more, I think, helpfully if I don't write a book about how I feel, but write more about what happened and then you decide how you would feel. And that's where you find yourself in the book, right? Exactly. Yeah. I often say, I'm sure I've said this to you and it's pretty it it's basically how I look at memoir is the best memoirs teach the readers more about themselves than tell the reader the story of the protagonist. Right? Yeah. And and and and that's probably I'm just, you know, I I'm probably just repeating something you told me a while back. But it's a that's exactly right. You know, otherwise it would just sound like me, I'm you know bunch of pages of me complaining about stuff. You know, what I wanted to do is is say, you know, I in in various ways there are things that people can relate to, you know, elementary school stuff, high school, law ⁓ undergrad, law school. These are all different windows in different people's lives. And you know, if you can't relate to the whole arc of my life because you have your own life. You can relate to s the the situations that I've described and picture yourself in them or recall your own similar experience and how you dealt with it and what you learned from it. And this is there something in the book that could teach you about that experience or teach something about you in it. Memoir is such a vulnerable form of storytelling. Because you kind of have to divulge everything you've always kept inside on paper in some way, shape, or form. Can you talk a little about some of the challenges that you faced in expressing yourself in this deeply personal way and how you're navigating this concept of other people having so much access to so much of you in reading your book? Boy, that hits it on the nose. I first of all writing it, I try to put out of my mind that anyone would ever read it, right? And ⁓ that freed me up to be as honest, sometimes brutally so, as I could be. And ⁓ I found it difficult, obviously, to do that, but it forces you to accept to be accountable for the decisions you've made. to see the role you played in things that maybe before you thought were just happened to you, but that you actually had responsibility for for these things. And and so I found that part of it quite cathartic. When I when I started writing it, it wasn't for me written in the first instance to be published, but to get all of these thoughts, feelings, analysis, ruminations out, ⁓ much like I by my journals have done, but w in one space. And then trying to do it in a way that would compel others to want to read it from cover to cover. Then that to the second part of the question, well let me first say in the context, every speech I gave where I talked about myself, I left a piece of myself on the cutting floor. Because it's absolutely mortifying and embarrassing to talk about. the subjects in there. I kept it as a secret for 38 years for that reason. So why that why would I put it in writing? Why would I talk about it? ⁓ you know, ⁓ it still embarrasses me. But like the lineups and after the speeches, I knew that it helped people and my desire, my hope is that this book will help people ultimately. Either themselves or help those they love who suffer from similar conditions. And so that to me makes the risk of being embarrassed and mortified and criticized worth the effort. I still think, you know, June 2nd is coming or the book launch is going to be, you know, any time, and people are I've never met will read it and know me better than people that are very close to me. And that scares the living daylights out of me, right? But I'm hoping that you know it'll create as my own personal advocacy has added to a community of people who are willing to talk about these tough subjects. ⁓ and that I could talk to when I need it or who could come to me. You mentioned ⁓ that you felt like the book was always there and it just needed to be kind of extracted. And I found that to be very much the case in your writing journey because typically I sign clients up for like an eight month process and you wrote your manuscript in two weeks. I don't think you slept or ate or rested, but we had a draft of your rawest, most vulnerable memories and self in what, maybe fifteen days? That is unheard of. I'm not sure of the timing of it. Two weeks. Like I did I I took three weeks off around Christmas, ⁓ and and after already having started a bit. ⁓ and what I found was that I once I started writing I couldn't stop. So I wasn't sleeping even much. I just you know, the book's twenty, two hundred twenty four pages long roughly. So I've done marathon writing sessions in the in the legal context, written arguments and stuff, pulled all liners and all and all that, but I've never work like three weeks in a row on nothing but and wanting to do nothing but with and finding that like I'm not even paying attention to time and it invigorating me and healing me in a way that nothing else ever had before. So I was getting so much out of the process that I didn't it didn't matter in some way to me what happened afterward. Because it was the process of writing that I found so helpful and and and the reason why it went quickly. And I think having the journals and sort of having this in my head and doing two hundred plus speeches, and then it was always always it was always there. I just had to write it down. And then with Frankel's inspiration, I had, you know, a sense of how I should write it, which was the missing link. And then your encouragement and support was the fulcrum that helped me tip into the authorship of it. I felt like I just like ⁓ opened up a can of Diet Coke and like put in a mento. It exploded. One thing that you and I have spoken about a little bit, and I'm I'm hoping that you can offer some advice to other writers who have stories that they want to share is ⁓ how to Be there for yourself while you're returning to these often painful, dark experiences and writing about them. You know, the last thing that I'd want you to experience is like a re-traumatization of some of your past, if that's a word. ⁓ so how did you strike the balance between protecting yourself while also accessing some of those memories that Perhaps you'd rather keep forgotten. I don't know that I have advice anyone should follow on that because I when I was writing it, I didn't protect myself. I had all I I refelt everything I felt, you know, and and memories that I had forgotten came back. You know the book starts off, I think, in the one of the early chapters about me being thrown off of a balcony. It was such a and it's the first memory of my life. But as I was writing it, some of the very visceral emotional memories, along with the smells and the sky and the mud and everything else that happen like involved in the description of that day sprang immediately to mind and I and I relived it as I wrote it. And I relived everything that I wrote. And it was hard to do. But I survived it the first time. And so I survived it again, stronger after the first time, stronger again after the second time, and also able to put things into perspective in an important way. And that often was the case for me when I would be able to say in writing the book, look, this has bothered me for fifty years. I see now it wasn't my fault. Right? I didn't deserve that. The adults in my life were failing me. at that time. When I was a child and for most of my adult life, the conclusion that I arrived at for the same events was that I deserved it. Why else would it happen? I I deserved it. So writing the book and its catharsis a cathartic effect ⁓ was to help me conclude that, you know, when you're a nine five year old kid For example, you don't deserve to be thrown out of the house and left on your own. Right? And then for those who listen and read, my hope is that they see that even if that happened to you, you can live a rewarding and meaningful life. Frankel talks about ⁓ finding meaning in service, and I think that you've Taken that on as well. And one of the early questions I asked you was, so if for those of us who live with depression and have to consistently battle back and forth between the voices in our heads, what if we know that we're going to continue to face these downs, right? These moments of despair, these very difficult moments, why do we keep going? At all. And I think you're well, you you had you had a different answer than I'd ever heard before. I asked you why do you keep going? And you said because you want to see what happens at the end of the movie. And I loved that answer because it was so human. You weren't trying to wax poetic about like, you know, purpose and all that stuff. But at the same time, in the time that you do have, you've decided to use your experiences to service. the needs of other people, both in your professional life and the legal work that you do, but especially in the speaking and this book as well. So any any thoughts on that? Well, I can't do better than others on the subject you know, and I think firstly of ⁓ Frankel himself. But you know, I don't ⁓ I don't know if happiness is something that I will ever achieve or should even pursue at this stage. But I found that in its place pursuing me a meaningful life is a good alternative. and know, serving others for me and I'm not sure if I'm exactly answering this question, Medina, so help me if if if I've strayed off, but serving others in some way, and for me it's it's with this advocacy speeches in the book, makes me feel useful. And feeling useful makes me feel worthwhile. And worthwhile counters a voice in my head that says I'm worthless and ⁓ a burden to everyone around me. So I have this this gives me a counter argument against my own depressive voice and objective means of verifying that In some small way I've made somebody's life better. And so my life was and has been worthwhile, and I am not a worthless human being who would express love by removing himself from the world and diminishing the burden on those who love and care for me. That's the irrational Thinking of a severely depressed mind that suicide, for example, is an act of love. I wanna read just a little bit of the beginning so that our listeners can hear both that sharp legal analytical mind coming through, but also the literary side of you that was able to balance both the hard facts with this very reflective and moving kind of tone. I'm gonna read the first paragraph of the prologue. Just to give our readers a sense of what to expect. The night I tried to die was quiet and practical. I was 40. I had lived with major depression since I was nine, through elementary school, high school, law school, Bay Street, the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario, the 40th Canadian general election, and titles that made others think I had made it. I fought my depression with every tool available. I tried over 40 antidepressants, anti-anxiety and anti-insomnia medications, group therapy, and almost every kind of talk therapy. None of it worked. Not in the long term, not in the medium term. I even thought success could fill the unfillable void. It didn't. As far as I could tell, one day, unwelcome and unannounced, depression entered my life. stood on my throat and without pity or remorse never left. It merely varied the pressure. Nothing diminished the core belief it downloaded that I was then, had always been and would always be a burden. And the story goes from there. And the reason I share that with our readers is because it takes us right into the way that you think. And like you said, the irrational mind of depression trying to pose itself as rational thought. That's probably the most dangerous part about ⁓ about depression and the thing that you're really fighting against here. So not only have you written a memoir, but you're also making a strong case for. Medical Assistance in Dying for Mental Health. Tell us a little bit about your stance on that and how this relates to the book. The Yeah, well thank you for asking for that about that. What what I describe for you is what you read in that chapter is is sort of the my you know my depressed mind working at its lowest, most depressive state. And when I'm in that state, you know, I believe that my depression has never left. It's always been like that. anvil or foot on my throat and will never leave. There's the absence of all hope. And I cannot remember in that in those times any time where I felt good. And I can't imagine any time when I'd feel good. And so your mind thinks convinces you in your most persuasive way, in your most your own voice, with your most persuasive arguments. that you are in a permanent condition. And that's not the kind of well, first of all, I was wrong. I'm always wrong when I say that. But I won't believe it in the moment. I always get better, even for a short time. My depression is cyclical. And when I'm not doing well, I don't want no to end my life. I don't want to, you know, any of this. I want to live through and see how this movie ends, like you mentioned. But I need to be reminded of that. And so I've developed tools to help remind me of that, including the journal, which I only used a write in when I'm depressed, and found that wherever there's a blank spot, it's it meant I wasn't. So clearly I could even plot it on a graph, the period from nineteen eighty six to twenty twenty six where I was depressed and when I wasn't. so that told me that I you know, the law as it is made law you know, that's set to for it to expand to mental illness where that's the sole underlying cause in March of twenty twenty seven would let me make the decision when I'm depressed, thinking it's a permanent state, ⁓ and qualifying it for it because I've tried everything, ⁓ like I see you mentioned, the forty pills and stuff. to die when I'm an unreliable narrator at that moment of my own ⁓ my own mental wellness or desire to live. So if you ask me in that state, you know, do you want to try more electroconvulsive shock therapy? Or do you wanna like we can offer permanent relief and help you die? I'm afraid of what I would choose. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know what I would choose. And if it was available previously, I probably would have chosen I would have qualified, would have convinced anyone, with any credentials of it. ⁓ in ninety two, ninety four, two thousand one, two thousand eight, and Maybe sometime in the future. And so it's that time in the future that makes me want This law to protect me from me. But it's not just about me. It's everyone else who experiences depression that way. They will tell you it's irremedial, maybe it is. They'll tell you that they never have relief from it. And maybe that's true and maybe it's not. But it's impossible to tell the difference. And so we're not ready for it. I don't think some like the disease itself convinces you you want to die. There's so many social determinants that that make vulnerable people especially vulnerable to wanting to not be a burden to others, especially if they feel worthless. They wanna take you know, give their place up in line to someone else who deserves it more. I remember when I was most depressed, I didn't even think I deserved help. So I it seems to me the law the debate about it is become too academic, ⁓ too, you know, based on autonomy, consent, capacity, where in fact, you know, I have all of those things. and have done thirty-six trials when I'm in a deeply depressed ep ⁓ episode, winning thirty-two of them. but still wanted to die every night. Right. I passed yes, but would fail my life. Orlando, I really appreciate you sharing this story with me today on this call and also just over the course of writing this book. ⁓ you know, you mentioned that at one point I might have been one of the three people who know knew the most about you or something like that. Which and it's a real honor to to be a part of that group. As we close, I want to know what is something that you want to leave our listeners with as they ⁓ go about getting a copy of your book and ⁓ exploring this story and experience for themselves? Well I you know I think that if you want to there's a lot of in the book that I think can be helpful to people who suffer from depression, who ⁓ who've worked in the legal profession, who've worked in high stake professions, who have people they love who suffer ⁓ from depression or anxiety. The book might help you understand the reasons for it, the the way of thinking of it. But it also includes at the end some ways of helping your s or the way I help myself, which may be useful to to others. But in the end I hope that, you know, you a reader will see that even someone that seems successful by all objective accounts can have a really messy life. and still cope and and and and be productive and be meaningful to others and help others. And at the end of the day, when you have finished the last chapter and close it, I hope it gives you hope. Because for me the only cure to depression has always ever been hope. So if the book gives you hope Then I've done something worthwhile. And I'm not worthless. So help me achieve that. Incredible. Orlando, thank you again for ⁓ sitting down with me today and for giving Antrasha Press the absolute privilege of publishing this book. It's been a real honor to work with you and learn from you. And ⁓ yeah, thank God you failed. That's all I have to say. Thank God I met you, Adina. The book wouldn't exist without you. ⁓ just write it, everybody. Thank you, Orlando. Thank you. That wraps up another episode of Did I Write That? featuring the outstanding authors published under Andrash Press. If you want to learn more, check out our website, ontrashPress.com, follow me on LinkedIn, and let's make sure to get the stories that the world needs to hear out into the world.