Chase the rainbow by Poorna Bell: A book about suicide, grief and addiction

This is a must read for our community! Poorna Bell is firstly an incredible writer and tells her story in such a compelling way but secondly describes the loss of her husband to suicide in one of the bravest, honest ways we’ve come across. 

Throughout the book she takes you on the beautiful journey of her meeting and falling in love with her husband, to the deterioration of their relationship due to addiction. Bell shines a light on the realities of struggling with severe mental illness and the torture of caring for a loved one going through that. She says, “When you or your loved ones don’t have a mental illness, it is almost impossible to comprehend what it’s really like. It’s not black and white; in fact, it deals almost exclusively in grey.” 

Bell has a way of describing some of the most painful parts of losing a loved one to suicide profoundly! We’ve included some of our favourite quotes below 

“When it comes to suicide, every pinprick of light that surrounded the darkness of their death is pounced upon; we hope against hope that our loved ones, while they died along, didn’t just die with despair.”

“The grief after a suicide is built on a thousand wishes, a million regrets. Divining the course of every word and gesture, every cancelled appointment and the phone call you didn’t take. The last I love you that stayed in my mouth.”

She also talks about the struggles she had talking to her community about her grief; “The worst thing ever to happen to me was now something I couldn’t talk about? I had to navigate other people’s awkwardness and sanitise my grief?” This is something we actively are trying to tackle through Our Conversation Guide.

Bell also references the articles she’s written which is where she started sharing her story of loss, starting with her writing a letter to her husband after he died which was part of the inspiration for our Words Unspoken Project.

Below are two letters that Poorna has written to her husband which you can read by clicking the buttons.