GAIL REGENBOGEN PODCAST EXTRA
AM So you are involved with MISSD. How did you come to be involved with MISSD?
GR So when my husband passed away, my girlfriend who told me about the akathisia, to look into it, introduced me to Wendy –
AM Whose husband had just taken his own life –
GR Six months to the day. So I called her, or maybe she called me. I can’t even remember. We were in contact with each other within maybe a week or two of my husband passing.
AM And you had not known each other?
GR We knew of – I knew of her. And I think she might have known who I was, but we had absolutely no relationship whatsoever. We had mutual friends. I had never met Stewart, never even, you know – I had no idea who he was, other than I did see in the news, six months previously, that some man jumped in front of a train and committed suicide.
AM You had read that in the news?
GR I had heard it on the news. I had seen it – I saw it on the 10:00 news. And my reaction was, what crazy person would jump in front of a train? Not knowing that, you know, there is this condition that causes someone to do something they otherwise maybe would not want to do.
So I got in contact with Wendy, and we met for the first time maybe about six weeks after my husband passed away.
AM Sorry to interrupt, but is the friend who told you, who basically said that word to you, akathisia, was she aware of it because of Stewart Dolin?
GR Correct. Correct.
AM OK, so that’s the case she was –
GR Referring to, yes. And so from the day that Wendy and I met, we became, you know, great friends. I mean, we just connected on many different levels.
AM Well, your stories are so similar.
GR Yeah. And, you know, our husbands seem to be very similar in many ways and we just had a lot in common. You know the saying, misery loves company. I mean, who else – you know, you talk to someone and they say to you, “Oh, I understand how you feel.” No, you don’t. You might have empathy for me, and you might be able to be sympathetic, but you don’t know what it feels like to lose your husband and have children without a father for no reason, you know, no good reason at all. So there are many nights that Wendy and I sat on the phone together and just cried. You know, she just understood where I was coming from and I just got her. So we just became very, very close friends. And she said to me, months after, you know, we became friendly, I want to do a foundation, a charity in Stewart’s memory. And I knew that if I went on to do something like that, it would be hard for me to move on with my life. I get caught up in things and just – I knew it was healthier for me to be a part of someone else’s mission, rather than to start my own. I thought it was healthier for my family, as well. And so when she said to me she was going to do it, I said, I’m in. So I’ve been in from the ground up.
One of the things I also did that has nothing to do with akathisia, but I volunteered at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, pediatric hospital, and I worked on oncology and hematology and I really felt like it was important for me. I had gone through a profound loss and I knew, even though my children were adult children, I knew for me that if I wasn’t OK, my kids were not going to be OK. They looked to me. And so I thought, well, what better than to volunteer at a hospital where there are children that are, you know, obviously dying from illness and these parents have other children that still need them. And you know, when you lose a child, you get lost, and I just wanted to work with these parents so that I could try to explain to them how important it was – it is for them to be strong and to stay positive for the children that they still have, that are still with them, and not to bury their sorrows in the child that they lost. And you know, it’s not a good situation for the whole family when you end up losing yourself in a situation like that. It’s so easy to do and yet so hurtful and harmful to the rest of your family in the long run.