“You’re only given a little spark of madness, and if you lose that, you’re nothing,” the late actor and comedian Robin Williams says in an interview resurfaced for HBO’s upcoming documentary about his life.

The cable network released a sneak peek on Thursday of “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind,” a film produced by Alex Gibney and Shirel Kozak that hits the small screen on July 16.

The documentary uses interviews with Williams, who died by suicide in August 2014, to paint an intimate portrait of one of America’s greatest entertainers. The trailer features the actor’s son Zak Williams and comedy giants including Steve Martin and Billy Crystal sharing their memories.

“My father didn’t always feel he was succeeding, but he was the most successful person I know,” Zak Williams says.

The comedian’s widow, Susan Williams, told People magazine in 2015 that an autopsy revealed her husband had a progressive brain disease called diffuse Lewy body dementia, or dementia with Lewy bodies. The complex disease is the third most common cause of dementia, with the symptoms worsening over time. Susan Williams said her husband experienced unexplained mental symptoms during the year of his death.

Watch the trailer above.

Anthony Bourdain, host of CNN’s “Parts Unknown,” chef, restaurateur and author, has died at the age of 61, the network said Friday.

“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain,” CNN said in a statement. “His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time.”

The cause was suicide, CNN said.

According to CNN, he was in France working on a “Parts Unknown” episode when a friend found him unresponsive on Friday morning.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

I always liked the way Anthony Bourdain nodded his head silently in approval at the first taste of a bite worth remembering. “I definitely enjoy my sandwiches,” he once said, “given how low I fell and how likely it was that there was going to be a different and tragic outcome. I’m a pretty lucky man.” For all his faults, and he knew he had many, Bourdain also knew to savor those moments.

He had traveled to my city, just as he had traveled to your city, just as he had traveled to every city. Bourdain knew he was an outsider, he always had been, but he was an outsider you trusted to get your city right ― to find that one dish in that one restaurant that had been hidden from the broader public up to that point. And to understand that one bite within the world it came from. He knew, as he once put it, that there is “nothing actually more political than food.” So when he visited Los Angeles, where I grew up, I trusted him to see the city for what it was, to understand the Korean food in front of him in the context of what that community dealt with (and dealt out) after the city’s cops beat Rodney King in 1991. And he did.

Bourdain hated lots of things, and I liked that about him, too. A little anger never hurts. He hated tasting menus and the word “authentic,” whatever that meant. And when people were rude to waiters. He had no interest in being associated with people like that. “We will, I hope, be judged, eventually by seemingly small, random acts of kindness and sincerity,” he wrote last month. He loved lots of things, too, like street food, the cheesesteaks at Donkey’s Place in New Jersey (not Philadelphia) and Vietnam.

“I want to be able to come back to Vietnam again and again and again,” he said. “And if this place is so wonderful, the world must be filled with many more wonderful and interesting and challenging and heartbreaking and inspiring and beautiful places.”

In particular, though, there was nothing he came to love more than his daughter, Ariane. He enjoyed making pancakes for her. “That makes me happy,” he said. The international traveler’s favorite place to go was her school, where he got to pick her up. He cried sometimes when he thought of her.

I trusted Bourdain because he was so earnest about wanting to be a better man. He admitted his own mistakes and shortcomings without the usual accompanying self-aggrandizement. “I hurt, disappointed and offended many, many, many people and I regret a lot. It’s a shame I have to live with,” he once said. Bourdain knew he wasn’t the greatest cook in the world, and neither was he always the greatest friend. “The kind of care and feeding required of friends, I’m frankly incapable of,” he said. His was the kind of honesty often found in recovering addicts who no longer have the luxury of hiding from the pain they’ve caused. He was not looking for credit for his self-awareness; he was identifying the fault to be worked on.

Bourdain was quick to admit he had been an “asshole” at times, filled with a “psychotic rage,” in his words, that he could take out on the line cooks, waiters and dishwashers around him. Eventually, however, he realized, “It’s terrible ― and counter-productive ― to make people feel idiots for working hard for you.”

He had gotten famous almost by mistake. Had the article that ignited his career as a 40-something cook in New York been published in the New York Press, as he originally wanted, rather than in the New Yorker, maybe we never would have met him. He’d been struggling at the time. “I was in horrible, endless, irrevocable debt. I had no health insurance. I didn’t pay my taxes. I couldn’t pay my rent,” he later said. “It was a nightmare.” But the article did come out in the New Yorker, and it did swing his life in another direction. He wrote a book and accepted his role as America’s “bad boy” cook. “There I was in the leather jacket and the cigarette and I also happily played that role or went along with it,” he said.

“People said a lot of silly things about me. People actually used the word macho around me. And this was such a mortifying accusation that I didn’t even understand it.”

He came to regret many of the things he represented after the release of the book, Kitchen Confidential. In a New Yorker profile published last year, the author credited Bourdain with helping to “create the circumstances in which one of the most widely praised restaurants in New York City is the Spotted Pig,” which was identified later that year as a breeding ground for alleged sexual assaults.

“I’ve had to ask myself, and I have been for some time, ‘To what extent in that book did I provide validation to meatheads?’” he said in October.  

He looked at himself especially critically over the past year, in a way not many other men did after the revelations started to come out ― first about Harvey Weinstein, accused by Bourdain’s girlfriend, Asia Argento, of assaulting her ― then about the men in his own industry. “I had to ask myself, particularly given some things that I’m hearing, and the people I’m hearing them about: Why was I not the sort of person, or why was I not seen as the sort of person, that these women could feel comfortable confiding in?” he asked. “I see this as a personal failing.”

Bourdain’s willingness to ask those questions out in the open was rare ― a real sort of bravery too many men shied away from. It’s hard to evolve. It’s harder, still, to do it in public, in real time, with your celebrity at stake. Fame tends to make people brittle, to give less and less of themselves to a public that only seems to want more and more. Bourdain went the other way. He brought us along with him as he traveled the globe in search of decent noodles and a better, more honest version of himself.

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

I always liked the way Anthony Bourdain nodded his head silently in approval at the first taste of a bite worth remembering. “I definitely enjoy my sandwiches,” he once said, “given how low I fell and how likely it was that there was going to be a different and tragic outcome. I’m a pretty lucky man.” For all his faults, and he knew he had many, Bourdain also knew to savor those moments.

He had traveled to my city, just as he had traveled to your city, just as he had traveled to every city. Bourdain knew he was an outsider, he always had been, but he was an outsider you trusted to get your city right ― to find that one dish in that one restaurant that had been hidden from the broader public up to that point. And to understand that one bite within the world it came from. He knew, as he once put it, that there is “nothing actually more political than food.” So when he visited Los Angeles, where I grew up, I trusted him to see the city for what it was, to understand the Korean food in front of him in the context of what that community dealt with (and dealt out) after the city’s cops beat Rodney King in 1991. And he did.

Bourdain hated lots of things, and I liked that about him, too. A little anger never hurts. He hated tasting menus and the word “authentic,” whatever that meant. And when people were rude to waiters. He had no interest in being associated with people like that. “We will, I hope, be judged, eventually by seemingly small, random acts of kindness and sincerity,” he wrote last month. He loved lots of things, too, like street food, the cheesesteaks at Donkey’s Place in New Jersey (not Philadelphia) and Vietnam.

“I want to be able to come back to Vietnam again and again and again,” he said. “And if this place is so wonderful, the world must be filled with many more wonderful and interesting and challenging and heartbreaking and inspiring and beautiful places.”

In particular, though, there was nothing he came to love more than his daughter, Ariane. He enjoyed making pancakes for her. “That makes me happy,” he said. The international traveler’s favorite place to go was her school, where he got to pick her up. He cried sometimes when he thought of her.

I trusted Bourdain because he was so earnest about wanting to be a better man. He admitted his own mistakes and shortcomings without the usual accompanying self-aggrandizement. “I hurt, disappointed and offended many, many, many people and I regret a lot. It’s a shame I have to live with,” he once said. Bourdain knew he wasn’t the greatest cook in the world, and neither was he always the greatest friend. “The kind of care and feeding required of friends, I’m frankly incapable of,” he said. His was the kind of honesty often found in recovering addicts who no longer have the luxury of hiding from the pain they’ve caused. He was not looking for credit for his self-awareness; he was identifying the fault to be worked on.

Bourdain was quick to admit he had been an “asshole” at times, filled with a “psychotic rage,” in his words, that he could take out on the line cooks, waiters and dishwashers around him. Eventually, however, he realized, “It’s terrible ― and counter-productive ― to make people feel idiots for working hard for you.”

He had gotten famous almost by mistake. Had the article that ignited his career as a 40-something cook in New York been published in the New York Press, as he originally wanted, rather than in the New Yorker, maybe we never would have met him. He’d been struggling at the time. “I was in horrible, endless, irrevocable debt. I had no health insurance. I didn’t pay my taxes. I couldn’t pay my rent,” he later said. “It was a nightmare.” But the article did come out in the New Yorker, and it did swing his life in another direction. He wrote a book and accepted his role as America’s “bad boy” cook. “There I was in the leather jacket and the cigarette and I also happily played that role or went along with it,” he said.

“People said a lot of silly things about me. People actually used the word macho around me. And this was such a mortifying accusation that I didn’t even understand it.”

He came to regret many of the things he represented after the release of the book, Kitchen Confidential. In a New Yorker profile published last year, the author credited Bourdain with helping to “create the circumstances in which one of the most widely praised restaurants in New York City is the Spotted Pig,” which was identified later that year as a breeding ground for alleged sexual assaults.

“I’ve had to ask myself, and I have been for some time, ‘To what extent in that book did I provide validation to meatheads?’” he said in October.  

He looked at himself especially critically over the past year, in a way not many other men did after the revelations started to come out ― first about Harvey Weinstein, accused by Bourdain’s girlfriend, Asia Argento, of assaulting her ― then about the men in his own industry. “I had to ask myself, particularly given some things that I’m hearing, and the people I’m hearing them about: Why was I not the sort of person, or why was I not seen as the sort of person, that these women could feel comfortable confiding in?” he asked. “I see this as a personal failing.”

Bourdain’s willingness to ask those questions out in the open was rare ― a real sort of bravery too many men shied away from. It’s hard to evolve. It’s harder, still, to do it in public, in real time, with your celebrity at stake. Fame tends to make people brittle, to give less and less of themselves to a public that only seems to want more and more. Bourdain went the other way. He brought us along with him as he traveled the globe in search of decent noodles and a better, more honest version of himself.

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

The release of a Kanye West album has long been an event, a musical moment worthy of grabbing a snack and settling in to listen.

I did just that in 2010 when “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” dropped. I remember scurrying away to my room so that I could immerse myself in the warped harmonizing of the album’s intro track, “Dark Fantasy,” as it evolved into a gospel-inspired, piano-driven, bass-laden beat. I remember nodding my head, drawn into the album’s wave, until the tide shifted with “Gorgeous.” Once again, I was forced to reckon with society’s mentally taxing mistreatment of black folks working to succeed. The lyrics let me know that I should do what I need to do to get where I want to go, regardless of what white folks say. Then the album threw me into “POWER,” reasserting that I should know my worth, that the world was mine, that I’m “so fucking gifted.”

Kanye always said what he meant, and his candor boosted the self-esteem of me and many other black kids. I have friends who agree that his body of work — mainly his first two studio albums, “The College Dropout” and “Late Registration” — helped them navigate or mentally escape difficult times in their youth. His music was worth something. It meant something.

This is no longer the case.

On “ye,” his eighth studio album released June 1, he’s a shadow of what we once thought he was. And the bulk of the lyrical content is about as exhausting as Kanye himself these days. It’s 23 minutes of vapid, self-aggrandizing tirades that seek to diminish the legitimate questions hurled at him about his politics. It masquerades as content that listeners are expected to find provocative, brilliant and relatable, but it’s really just a collection of rants from a narcissist who refuses to acknowledge his own flaws.

When the rapper returned to Twitter in April, he unleashed a weekslong onslaught of political views that stood in opposition to the Ye who once proclaimed “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” He said he likes the way that right-wing blogger Candace Owens, who has spoken out against Black Lives Matter and other black issues, thinks. He shared his support for President Donald Trump, who routinely uses black friends as props, by tweeting a photo of himself in a “Make America Great Again” hat. In an interview with Power 105.1 host Charlamagne Tha God, Kanye said he was willing to sit down with Trump because “racism isn’t a dealbreaker” for him. A few hours after that interview dropped, Kanye proclaimed in a taped TMZ interview that being enslaved “sounds like a choice.”

Following the angry backlash to his comments, the rapper claimed he “completely redid” his new album. But, on June 8, he added a lyric to its opening track, igniting speculation that this was the line he initially removed: 

If I wasn’t shinin’ so hard, wouldn’t be no shade
Buckwheat-ass nigga, it’s gon’ be otay
Sorry, but I chose not to be no slave

Yet, at one point in his career, it seemed like all Kanye talked about was race. On “The College Dropout” and “Late Registration,” he acknowledged what it’s like being a “token blackie,” being racially profiled and silenced at work (work you need), and highlighted white supremacy’s ability to obscure racism through the lens of progress. These songs got me through a retail job where I was forced to stay late one night after the register came up short, even though I hadn’t stolen anything. It got me through a college experience where my presence, and the presence of other black folks, in a predominantly white space was used to silence any real acknowledgment of racial discrimination.

Kanye’s ability to lace together tales of black triumph and black people’s ability to make the best with what we have helped me.

My favorite example of this is “Crack Music,” a track off “Late Registration” that explains how the 1980s crack epidemic was a result of institutional racism. The song ends with a spoken word poem from Malik Yusef that points to a very complicated piece of the black American experience:

Our Father, give us this day our daily bread
Before the feds give us these days and take our daily bread
See I done did all this ol’ bullshit
And to atone, I throw a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ on the pulpit
We took that shit, measured it and then cooked that shit
And what we gave back was crack music
And now we ooze it through they nooks and crannies
So our mommas ain’t got to be they cooks and nannies
And we gon’ repo everything they ever took from granny
Now the former slaves trade hooks for Grammys
This dark diction has become America’s addiction
Those who ain’t even black use it
We gon’ keep baggin’ up this here crack music 

I remember asserting that I, too, would work my ass off to take back everything white supremacy had taken from my family, from my people.

After toning it down on “Graduation” and “808s & Heartbreak,” Kanye brought the theme back full-force on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and “Watch the Throne.” On the latter album, “Murder to Excellence,” in particular, allows Kanye to express his anguish over crime that ravishes black communities before pivoting to black excellence in the second half. He lightly addressed his personal experiences with racism on “Yeezus” and “The Life of Pablo.”

Then, during a 2016 on-stage rant, Kanye told black people to “stop focusing on racism.”

I’ve never bought the idea that listeners should separate the art from the artist ― content is a reflection of its creator. (For example, as Damon Young explained, R. Kelly makes sexually deviant music because he is an alleged sexual deviant.) In “ye,” Kanye himself won’t allow listeners to dissociate his recent slew of disgusting, ahistorical rants from his music. He spends the majority of the album making it clear that he said what he said.

On “Yikes,” he insinuates that his TMZ debacle was reminiscent of what we would find in a volume of SMACK DVD, a video hip-hop magazine that featured artists being their most authentic selves. On “Wouldn’t Leave,” he further addresses the “slavery is a choice” debacle by saying his wife Kim Kardashian called him in a panic, angry that his actions were going to “fuck the money up.” On “Violent Crimes,” he explains that he didn’t really see women as people until he had a daughter, which forced me to recall his horrible, dehumanizing statements about his ex-girlfriend Amber Rose. He expresses no understanding of what’s wrong with what he’s saying, what he’s been saying.

It’s heartbreaking, truly, to watch the artist I admired so deeply for his championing of blackness in a white industry devolve. What now reads as narcissism used to come off as self-confidence, as a black man who was proud of himself and his achievements despite white society telling him that he should be humble. His former “concern” for black issues has revealed itself as pure convenience. Yet his now apparent desire to replicate white supremacy had been right in front of us all along — as Ta-Nehisi Coates pointed out in The Atlantic. Instead of giving his antics the scrutiny they required, so many of us, myself included, chalked them up to his “genius.”

We should have paused longer when he married into the comically anti-black, culturally appropriating Kardashian family. We should have given his decision to plaster the Confederate flag on his clothing line a longer side-eye. The racial dynamics of “Hell of a Life” should have raised concern. We should have dragged him through the mud when he declared Bill Cosby was “innocent.” We should have, as Coates wrote, seen that Kanye wanted white freedom for himself, not actual freedom for all oppressed peoples.

Kanye has revealed himself to be nothing more than an unthoughtful contrarian, someone who is purely provocative. He’s not a misunderstood genius. He is promoting toxicity as “free thought” and his “thinking” harms black people. He has chosen to ignore the dangers of policy controlled by a white racist, thus supporting anti-black policy and political miseducation.

The last two months of rants and spreading of misinformation were not performance art meant to promote an album, as some hoped. Kanye was unraveling the beautiful lyricism that has long served to obscure who he bluntly is. He is no longer boosting the self-esteem of black folks. He’s only boosting his own. And while he can afford that, his fans can’t.

I won’t.

CORRECTION: Charlamagne Tha God is a radio show host on Power 105.1, not Hot 97.

NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars has found complex organic matter on the surface of the red planet.

The organic molecules were discovered inside some sedimentary rocks within an ancient lake bed that existed around 3 billion years ago. The finding is our strongest evidence yet that at one time in the past, Mars may have been able to support what we would know as alien life.

There is already plenty of evidence to suggest that billions of years ago Mars was far from the dry and barren planet we see today. Instead it’s believed that the red planet have had an atmosphere that supported vast oceans of liquid water and within that water may have flourished organic life.

While the discovery of organic molecules is significant, it’s not a direct indicator that life may have existed on Mars.

“With these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of life,” explains Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “I’m confident that our ongoing and planned missions will unlock even more breathtaking discoveries on the Red Planet.”

In addition to finding these organic molecules, Curiosity was also able to make a major new discovery surrounding Mars’ atmosphere.

We already knew that Mars’ atmosphere contained large unpredictable plumes of methane gas, what we didn’t fully understand is where the gas is coming from.

Thanks to the extended time period that Curiosity has spent on Mars it has actually been able to detect seasonal variations in how the methane is produced, and where it settles throughout the year.

“This is the first time we’ve seen something repeatable in the methane story, so it offers us a handle in understanding it,” said Chris Webster of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

While these two findings aren’t definitive evidence of life outside of Earth, they take us a tantalising step closer to finally having that answer.

“Are there signs of life on Mars?” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, at NASA Headquarters. “We don’t know, but these results tell us we are on the right track.”

Another week, we might be discussing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s alarming new suicide report in abstract terms.

The CDC announced Thursday that suicide rates increased in all but one U.S. state from 1999 to 2016, and they rose by more than 30 percent in 25 of those states. The report also noted that nearly 45,000 Americans died of suicide in 2016, which, for perspective, is more people than Chicago’s Wrigley Field can hold during a sold-out baseball game.

But this wasn’t a week in which suicide felt vague or far off. On Tuesday, we learned of the passing of beloved fashion designer Kate Spade, and Friday brought news that chef Anthony Bourdain too had died while in France to film his CNN show “Parts Unknown.”

Suddenly, we all knew someone who had taken their own life. And at least one mental health organization connected those celebrity stories to America’s broader suicide crisis. In its statement on Spade’s death, the American Association of Suicidology pointed out that 28 women die by suicide every day in the U.S. and that, for middle-aged women in particular, it’s one of the top 10 causes of death. In another statement Friday, the organization added that, as they mourn Bourdain, they “also mourn the death of the other 95 men who will die by suicide today in the U.S.”

As a journalist who covers mental health, and as a man who has long grappled with anxiety and depression, one of the most haunting things about the CDC’s report was news that 84 percent of men who die by suicide don’t have a known mental health condition. This suggests thousands of men are suffering privately before seeking what one previously suicidal former Marine called “a release from the pain, fear, and hatred that dominated my life” in an anonymously authored May 2018 Task & Purposeessay.

Guys, we don’t have to continue like this. And I know this from experience.

Exactly one year ago, I was reeling from a maelstrom of life events: a breakup, three funerals in two months and years’ worth of accumulated career stress exacerbated by workaholic tendencies. I tumbled into profound depression. I wasn’t suicidal, but I was far from healthy. On May 29, I wrote in a diary entry that I’d become a “totally scrambled person.” On June 1, I described working to meet a journalism deadline as “virtually unbearable.”Two days later, I wrote, “I’m in one of those periods where every day feels like a battle.”

I consider myself a pretty sensitive, well-informed, forward-thinking guy who isn’t weighed down by too much toxic masculinity. But as I look back on the events that led to that depressive spell, I realize that, for years, it felt excruciating to ask for help ― both in the form of entering therapy (which I had done a few months before that depressive spell) and in smaller ways, like asking favors from friends and co-workers, or even telling someone I was having a hard time. Are the men dying of suicide with no known mental health condition suffering from a similar mindset? Do these men even know basics facts about mental health care?

If so, here’s a rare instance in which I encourage men to be way more self-centeredin their thinking. To my fellow dudes: Mental health treatment is not some abstract, foreign thing that happens for other people in a hospital somewhere. It’s about you, even if you’ve never once sat on a therapist’s couch. You may be a truck driver in Nevada, or a stock broker in Chicago, or a line cook in Florida, or a police officer in Topeka, or unemployed in Dallas or a millionaire in Seattle. Whoever you are, there is an entire industry of people out there who want to help you.

We’re talking about thousands of smart, compassionate people who have studied and trained for years, who go to conferences and read books and write papers, all for the purpose of helping you. They have room in their schedules to help you, and if they don’t, they’ll refer you to a trusted colleague who does. Their offices are a safe, confidential space to cry, vent and maybe share things you’ve never told anybody.

In my case, a continued regimen of therapy, introspection and self-care hasn’t just been instrumental to my recovery; over time, it has helped flip my understanding of what it means to be a man. I now view vulnerability (which I desperately avoided for so long) as a form of toughness. I now see seeking help as a sign of strength. I haven’t perfected either one, but I’m working on it. And I feel like a better man as a result.

The hopeful news amid this week’s tragedies is that, as the National Institutes of Mental Health tells us, suicide is often preventable. And a key step in that prevention is education. Some of the resources I’ve found most valuable aren’t dense psychology textbooks but things like Andrew Solomon’s TED Talk on depression, Matt Haig’s book Reasons to Stay Alive or, if you want something more official, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual’s entry on major depressive disorder. This latest CDC report also includes valuable practical information, like tips for recognizing suicide warning signs. Information is a key weapon in battling the stigma men face when it comes to mental illness.

Today, I looked back on my old diary entries with a sense of wonder and gratitude. I’m not “cured” of my anxiety or negative thoughts, but I’m in a much better place. After months of numbness, my full spectrum of emotions has returned. I have renewed energy, and purpose, and curiosity, and anger, and mental clarity and so many of the other things depression can snatch from you.

On Friday, following news of Bourdain’s death, Vox journalist Zack Beauchamp shared a story of his own mental health crisis and recovery, which hinged on when he “stopped hiding the way I felt, and clued in people who loved me about what was going on.” Elsewhere, Peter Sagal, the host of NPR’s “Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!” described the pivotal role antidepressants played in his mental health. For the author of that Task & Purpose piece, it was a remembered phrase from a platoon sergeant he admired: “Thinking of suicide is a sign of a medical emergency.” My turning point was a spell of depression and burnout so powerful I was unable to work my way through it.

Each guy’s story of healing and recovery is going to look a little different. But they all start, at some point, with talking. And as the CDC report points out, this doesn’t and cannot just fall to the person struggling. Under the heading “5 Steps to Help Someone at Risk” is a simple suggestion:

“Ask.”

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

Several minutes into reading Ari Aster’s script for the new movie “Hereditary,” Toni Collette was confused. Her agents had billed it as a horror project ― familiar territory, as Collette’s chilly performance in “The Sixth Sense” earned her an Oscar nomination ― but what she held in her hands felt more like a grim drama. And that’s not what she was in the mood for.

“I’d said to my team, ‘I don’t want to do anything heavy. I just want to do some comedies for a while,’” Collette said earlier this week. “And then they sent me this, and they said, ‘I know what you said, but please just take a look at it.’”

When we first meet Collette’s “Hereditary” character, a diorama artist named Annie Graham, she is delivering her mother’s eulogy ― an introduction laced with dread. Her mother was a “difficult woman” with “private rituals,” Annie laments. Something about her departure isn’t typical. Back home, the trappings of a grieving-family saga unfold. Annie’s wide-eyed, 13-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro, from Broadway’s “Matilda”) asks the kind of questions any kid wonders about death. Her son Peter (Alex Wolff, from Nickelodeon’s “The Naked Brothers Band”), a high school slacker, disappears into his room, bitter and brooding. Her psychiatrist husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) tries to keep everything, and everyone, intact. As grief consumes them, eeriness sets in: a ghost appears, a clucking noise recurs, insects trickle in, a bird smacks into a window, Annie’s mother’s gravesite is desecrated. 

Out of the household drama, terror is born.

“Even when I was pitching the film, I was pitching it as a family tragedy that turns into a nightmare, in the way that life can feel like a nightmare when things fall apart,” Aster said.

The 31-year-old first-time filmmaker came to the project armed with a bevy of cinematic touchstones. Some belonged to the “domestic melodrama” genre; others were traditional horror pieces. To Wolff, he described “Hereditary” as “Rosemary’s Baby” meets “Ordinary People.” Collette saw shades of “The Ice Storm.” For his crew, Aster screened “Don’t Look Now” and referenced Janet Leigh’s demise in “Psycho.” And the whole time, he now realizes, Aster was channeling psychodramas like “In the Bedroom,” “Cries and Whispers” and the naturalistic catalog of his favorite director, Mike Leigh (“All or Nothing,” “Secrets & Lies”).

Collette couldn’t say no. She was trying to avoid internalizing another heavy role, à la “Velvet Goldmine,” “The Hours,” “Evening,” “Miss You Already” and “United States of Tara” ― but Aster’s script got the best of her, even if she lost the horror bug as soon as Freddy Krueger entered her life at teenage sleepovers. 

Her decision paid off. “Hereditary” was among the primo sleeper hits at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where reviews christened it one of the scariest movies in years. (“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” Collette said of the positive word of mouth.) Pre-release buzz has been tantamount to a modest blockbuster, so much so that trendy indie outpost A24 is rolling the dice with a nationwide rollout opposite the star-studded “Ocean’s 8.” During a season known for easily digestible franchise behemoths like “Deadpool 2,” “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and the forthcoming “Jurassic World” sequel, here comes a product meant to shock people in ways the average horror crowd-pleaser cannot.

“It certainly was a welcome surprise to see the film be so widely embraced because ultimately it is a film whose primary aim is to upset the audience on a pretty high level,” Aster said. “It’s a very serious family drama that’s been smuggled into a horror film, and I think the fact that it’s being touted as this terrifying horror film is very good for it because it’s finding a mainstream audience. If it weren’t a horror film, then you just have an extremely bleak, hopeless drama, and who’s going to go see that?”

The ghost that appears in Annie’s home is something of a red herring, but that’s not to say the terror grows any less palpable after the apparition vanishes. “Hereditary” builds toward something very sinister indeed. The frights escalate in tandem with the Grahams’ spiral. As the clan tries to recover, they wind up encountering another loss. From there, family history intercepts their healing in unpredictable ways: feuds, panic, seances, occult mythology, a menacing treehouse, a Ruth Gordon-esque appearance from Ann Dowd and a key reference to the doomed Greek princess Iphigenia ― all of which are best viewed cowering in your seat, chuckling nervously with a roomful of strangers.

To diagram the film’s thriller-friendly aesthetics and spooky atmosphere, Aster wrote a 130-page breakdown, shot by shot: where the camera would go in relation to the actors, how he’d pull off complex stunts, how the music (clucks included) functioned. Because it would cost too much to displace an actual family and redecorate their elegant house, the crew built sets on a Utah soundstage that became a makeshift home last summer. For the most part, it didn’t even have ceilings. (“Hereditary” reportedly cost less than $10 million.)

“Ari is very controlling — not in a bad way, it’s just that he’s so specific, and I think having our own set was our way of controlling the environment and being able to utilize the space,” Collette said.

Wolff was a bit more contemplative about it. “Boy, do I wish we had ceilings and were in a real house,” he said, chuckling. “That would have made it a lot easier. But I think it added to the movie. I honestly think I kept my head down and didn’t look up. I had everyone call me Peter. I was torturing myself for three months. ... I learned a really great lesson making [‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’], where I was sitting there and [director Jake Kasdan] was like, ‘OK, so now your hands dissolve and you fly into the TV screen and you scream.’ I was thinking, ‘How do I do that?’ And then I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m flying into the TV screen!’ And when you have that attitude, it’s fearless. I like the ‘fuck it’ attitude. Just do it.”

You need a “fuck it” mantra just to watch this movie’s slow-burning creep, which Aster trimmed from an initial three-hour cut to a more accessible 127 minutes, losing about 30 tension-building scenes along the way. In its current form, “Hereditary” continually forces us to recalibrate our answers to key conundrums. Is Annie a good parent? What does her dollhouse art tell us about her children’s oddities? What do the clucks and contortions mean? Where the devil is all of this headed? How much devastation can one tribe withstand? Clues emerge in fits and starts. 

“I wanted the film to belong to an older tradition of horror films that take their time and are about something,” Aster said. “There are so many horror films that have, at the center, a couple going through grief, but it feels like that is just a device to get to the scary stuff, as opposed to the scary stuff really growing out of the situation. I just knew I wanted to make a film that was about suffering.”

Even if “Rosemary’s Baby” is an obvious influence, this operates in the same vein as “The Babadook,” “The Witch,” “Let the Right One In” and “The Wailing,” recent movies that use art-house sensibilities to advance time-honored horror tropes. These endeavors often attract the label “elevated horror,” meant to denote more than jump scares and serial killers. The genre’s disciples will eat up whatever they can get ― just look at the success of everything from “A Quiet Place,” “It” and “Get Out” to “Happy Death Day” and the “Purge” series ― even though so much relies on cheap tactics and rudimentary storytelling. Aster wanted more than that.

“It makes sense that people have to distinguish in that way because there’s a lot of shit out there,” he said. “It’s because there’s a built-in audience, and the risk-reward algorithm works in the [Hollywood] studios’ favor. So there are a lot of studios that produce these films extremely cynically. Those films just meet the demands in a very, very superficial, rote way, and so it is important to distinguish between when one is a cash grab and when one is a more sincere product.”

As for “Hereditary”? It’s the real deal. 

I went to a T.I. concert once, and he told me (well, the whole crowd) that haters are only going to hate if you’ve got something for them to hate on. So thanks, T.I., for basically writing the beginning of this article. Because the line sums up perfectly what’s been happening with “Avengers: Infinity War” this year.

The latest Marvel installment has earned around $2 billion at the box office and ecstatic praise from its hordes of fans ― all serving as an incentive for the aforementioned haters. But there’s one thing the critics keep coming back to, and it has to do with the movie’s ending.

Warning: Spoilers for “Avengers: Infinity War” below!

The film’s ending wiped out half the residents of the universe ― including a lot of your favorite superheroes like Spider-Man, most of the Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther ― but many of those characters have sequels that are on the way.

I loved “Infinity War.” I loved it so much I want to marry it. I too, however, can be counted among the ending-aggrieved haters; I previously wrote about how the Marvel masterminds basically lied to us about the permanency of the film’s deaths.

My colleague Matt Jacobs laid out his beef with the deaths in an essay titled “The End Of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Is What Happens When Money Writes Movies”:

Marvel Studios is a business first (owned by Disney) and a story factory second. And because it’s a business, we know how many movies certain actors are contracted for and which ones have sequels already in development. That includes some whose characters supposedly went bye-bye.

We said our piece, and now the “Infinity War” directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, are responding.

I asked the Russo brothers for their thoughts on the criticism ― and about the fact that we’ll see dead characters coming back in sequels ― but they stuck to their guns.

“Here’s the thing, I think it’s important to remember anything is possible in the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe],” Anthony said. “Just because there’s a sequel on the books doesn’t mean ... people become accustomed to time moving linearly in the MCU. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. There’s a lot of very inventive ways of where the story can go from here.”

Joe agreed, reiterating the idea that the movies don’t need to happen in chronological order.

“There’s four years between ‘Guardians 2’ and ‘Infinity War.’ That’s a long time, and a lot of ‘Guardians’ stories to tell. Again, as Anthony said, don’t expect everything to move forward in a linear fashion in the Marvel universe.”

OK, some of what the directors said is going to come true sooner rather than later. Marvel’s next two films, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Captain Marvel,” both take place before the “Infinity War” timeline. But according to some theories, that’s so both of those movies can establish ground rules for the Quantum Realm dimension ― which could bring back dead characters in the future.

If this were the D.C. universe, we could have used Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth on the Russos. But also, if it were D.C., Captain America and Iron Man would’ve probably stopped fighting in “Captain America: Civil War” because their moms have the same name. So we might just be better off waiting.

Anthony Bourdain joked about failing upward, about making every mistake imaginable yet still ending up with a dream job. He was paid to travel the world, talk about food, and share stories about people. So when the news broke Friday that he had died by suicide, it came as a particular shock.

Bourdain and designer Kate Spade, who also died by suicide this past week, inspired millions and seemingly “had it all.” From the outside looking in, it is difficult to understand how things got so bad for these celebrities when everything about their lives appeared so good. 

It would be offensive for me to speculate about what led to these tragedies. However, I can relate to seemingly having it all.

For the better part of 14 years, I have made a living as an entertainment journalist, pundit and television host. I have been paid to travel the world and speak with fascinating people while trying all manner of food and having one adventure after another.

And for an entire year, I wanted to die.

In addition to his literal height advantage over me, Anthony Bourdain was a guy I figuratively looked up to, and who had a gig I wanted. He was gracious with his time, and he invited me along for a drink when I first met him on an interview in 2007 when he was doing publicity for a No Reservations book connected to his Travel Channel series.

We spoke numerous times and, in 2012, as he was making the move from Travel to CNN for ”Parts Unknown,” I happened to be in production as a host and co-executive producer for a show on the Travel Channel. At a publicity event for his Get Jiro! graphic novel at his former spot Brasserie Les Halles, we had bone marrow, and he gave me advice about working with the network.

Time passed, and I was exceptionally proud to have built a career doing everything I wanted to do. My family never had much money to travel when I was a kid, so filling a passport with stamps from my own parts unknown was a level up for my life. My job became talking about superheroes, science fiction, folklore and the paranormal. I shared the stage with heroes and filmed segments spelunking into ice caves, racing muscle cars, skulking around supposedly haunted buildings, and ladling seemingly ancient spirits direct from freshly tapped barrels. Hell, I rode in one of Adam West’s Batmobiles and a DeLorean. Life was good.

But in the relatively short span of 12 months, my marriage fell apart, I experienced significant health problems, had to move unexpectedly, a big project fell through, and I was let go from a job under what I believed were unfair circumstances. Although I had not experienced it before, these events triggered a clinical depression. 

Every day I contemplated my own death. On the darkest days, these ideations were pronounced, detailed and dangerously close to an actionable plan. Other days, I clenched my fist in rage, shouting at a deity I didn’t believe in, imploring him or her to do the deed for me in the way of a massive heart attack or out-of-control New York City bus.

The visual I conjured when I’ve thought about my own depression is George A. Romero’s ghouls. I felt like the slow runner in the apocalypse, the one who couldn’t outpace the zombies. They caught up with me when I tripped and fell, and were on me, digging their rotted fingers into my abdomen, ripping me open while I remained conscious. I would watch them devour me alive, but felt too paralyzed and powerless to fight them off, and I wanted to call out for my mother, or my ex, but there wasn’t enough voice left in me to do so. And I was afraid that if I mustered the cry that no one would come to save me from the ghouls anyhow.

I was acutely aware that I did not want these feelings, but they were there anyhow, always either driving the car or loudly riding shotgun. My internal monologue read something like: “Nope, don’t want to be here, not worth it, I’m not worth it, I hate myself, I hate how I am, I hate who I’ve become, but, hey, this fancy work dinner in London is pretty swell.”

Sometimes I admitted aloud that I no longer wished to live. I openly asked others what my worth was. Most of the time, though, I just privately carried this wish to be no more.

I still worked. But the energy I brought to the stage or camera, to hype up crowds or do silly stunts with celebrities, was hollow. The “me” that was the authentic, joyful person on the job became the mask. As I would continue to have adventures and enviable gigs, good-natured friends and supporters would post on social media, “Jealous,” “You’re so lucky,” “I hate you,” and, “I want your life.” In response, I would quietly think, “I hate me too,” and “Please, take my life.”

There were great days as well. Those days spent with loved ones, or feeling high from a job well done. Those days where I felt like I had nailed it, cracked the code, and had finally shed the pain from the past year and was back to my old self.

But inevitably, at the end of those days, I returned home, or to a hotel room I would not have been able to afford on my own. I would once again realize that “I” was the alter ego. The mask would come off, and the grotesque husk would emerge.

The pressure to deliver, to be the person others expect you to be, to live it up and love a life and job others would kill for just served to cement the mask in place. For me, I felt like I had to appear “together,” and that being grateful for my success meant I wasn’t allowed to feel so broken.

I felt I couldn’t allow myself to admit to such pain and “weakness” publicly for risk of damaging my “brand.” The stigma feels real. Who would want to hire the guy who had felt so much pain he couldn’t bring himself to even move from a hotel sofa for several hours at a time, physically weighted down and staring ahead, numb and completely still like a cadaver positioned upright?

I remained quiet. And when I was dangerously close to the precipice, I got some help, and things did begin to turn around. Over time. I re-familiarized myself with who I am versus the depression I have battled.

Again, I cannot presume to know what Anthony Bourdain or Kate Spade or anyone who struggles with suicidal thoughts is going through precisely. But I can confidently say no one wants to feel like they are fighting their own mind, and emotions, and losing. And I believe most people put on a mask and tell themselves a variation of, “Why am I dealing with this when I’ve got it good?” or, “I have a great job, or spouse and kids who love me.” Or, “I have it all.” This thinking created a toxic cocktail for me, in particular, because it prevented me from seeking treatment (and in the depths of depression, you don’t even feel worthy of being saved).

If you are hurting, I really want you to reach out to a friend, and call a hotline. Get help. Please.

And if you are that friend, go ahead and reach out to people, even those that seem like they have it all together. Because when the demons of depression claw at someone’s insides, it isn’t about how many followers they have or how many stamps are in their passport or how much money is in the bank.  

You can appear to have it all and still feel like you’re not enough or still want to die. And the truth is, it is a dangerous myth to believe anyone can ever have it all. But you can have help, and there is no shame in seeking it out.

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

Deaths by suicide, like the ones of designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain this week, are tragic reminders that mental health issues don’t discriminate based on success. Mental health problems can hide in plain sight ― sometimes to loved ones or even to the person who suffers from them.

A new study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that suicide rates are climbing, having increased by more than 25 percent since 1999. What’s particularly alarming is that 54 percent of people who died by suicide in 2015 had no known mental health condition, meaning that they were likely going untreated or dealing with acute issues like relationship problems, money troubles or other personal crises.

All of this means there needs to be a better dialogue surrounding mental health, and not just one that only occurs after public tragedies when it’s already too late. Chances are when you’re at brunch with friends or at dinner with family, you’re not discussing fatal self-harm freely over your meal. Suicide can be an ugly and uncomfortable topic to bring up. But it’s a conversation that needs to happen regularly.

Below experts break down how to actually have a productive talk about suicide with your loved ones and why it’s important to not avoid it, whether they’re in crisis or not. One chat could just save a life.

Realize that self-harm can happen to someone you know.

Many people believe that suicide and self-harm is a distressing topic, but also one that will likely never affect them, so they avoid discussing it, according to Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.

“The best way to talk about suicide is openly and honestly. People are often afraid of the word and they won’t bring it up,” Reidenberg said. “They have preconceived notions of what they think about it and they believe it will never happen, so they don’t talk about it.”

The reality is that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., claiming almost 45,000 American lives per year. The rates of suicide attempts and acts of self-harm are even higher. Suicide isn’t just someone else’s problem, it’s everyone’s problem.

Know that bringing it up isn’t going to make things worse.

Talking about suicide only helps the problem. It doesn’t exacerbate it.

“The most important advice is to have a caring conversation. The evidence has clearly demonstrated that talking about suicide does not cause suicide,” said Colleen Carr, the deputy director of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. “Instead, talking openly about suicidal thoughts and feelings can increase hope and help someone on their journey to recovery.”

Talk about the topic of suicide like you would any other health condition.

Discussing any other health problem isn’t shameful. Suicide should be treated with the same consideration.

“Whether someone struggles with a mental illness or engages in self-harm, or even for the person who does not, we need to be able to talk about the topic of suicide no different than talking about diabetes even when the person you are talking to does not have it,” Reidenberg said. “Think of the breast cancer or diabetes 5k races ― hundreds of thousands across the country attend them whether they know someone with one of those disease or not.”

Open up about any difficult experiences you might be going through.

Talking about your difficulties may encourage others to do the same. And if you know someone is going through a difficult time, let them know you’re aware and you care. Conversation starters or topics like, “What are you doing to get through this crisis?” or “You don’t seem like yourself lately, what’s going on?” can help, Reidenberg said. 

“Suicide is a complex issue and not caused by one factor [like mental illness] but rather a range of factors such as relationship, substance use, physical health, job, financial and legal problems,” Carr added. “We can reach out to support friends, loved ones and others who are going through a tough life event or struggling with mental illness, just as we do our friends and family who are struggling with a physical illness.”

Really listen when someone is talking during the discussion.

It’s not only vital to ask people to open up, it’s crucial to actively listen to what they’re saying and reflect that in your response. 

“It is also really important to convey your care and concern for them, with the key to it by being genuine,” Reidenberg said. “If you really care, make sure they know that and don’t think that you are just asking without any real intent to listen and be helpful.”

Ask direct, pointed questions.

It’s important to be straightforward with your friends or loved ones if it sounds like they’re at risk, according to Victor Schwartz, chief medical officer at the mental health organization The Jed Foundation.

“If someone does seem to be struggling, it is OK to ask them if they are having thoughts about self-harm,” Schwartz said. “If they are, it is useful to ask whether there is a specific plan and are they feeling like they might act on it. It is also useful to ask about what things might be making the person feel hopeful about the future.”

Check any bias at the door.

Debates about the validity of mental illnesses and their subsequent consequences aren’t productive, according to Reidenberg. (Nor do they have any real merit.) Regardless, all of those biases should be left behind when discussing a life-or-death topic.

“When talking about suicide to someone who might be suicidal, leave your biases and moral beliefs about it elsewhere,” he said. “This is not the time to preach to someone who is struggling with a disease that feels their life is in crisis.”

Accept that you will feel uncomfortable — and that’s OK.

A little discomfort is better than the alternative of leaving an important conversation left unsaid, Schwartz said.

“Being open to hearing about someone’s pain and struggles and helping them find help can save lives,” Schwartz said. “This conversation will never not be difficult. It is frightening to sit with someone who is in serious distress. It is not possible to normalize this conversation ― but we can accept the discomfort and understand that it is still the right thing to do.”

Don’t downplay the issue.

Suicide is serious. Period.

“When talking about it, make sure it is done just as seriously as any other conversation about an illness,” Reidenberg said. “Don’t minimize or deny that mental illnesses are real, that they hurt, and don’t be judgmental about them ... You wouldn’t tell someone with cancer to ‘just get over it.’”

Speak up over staying silent.

If you’re ever debating whether or not you should bring up suicide, always err on the side of saying something, Reidenberg stressed.

“If everyone is willing to start the conversation about suicide, we can begin to create a comprehensive system to saving more lives,” Reidenberg said. “Asking about suicide is not going to put a thought into someone’s head or lead them toward it. In reality, it can help reduce their anxiety, distress and potentially save their life.”

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.