You'd think the last candidate for suicide would be a psychologist.
But psychologists say: Never underestimate the power of mental illness.
Ask Judy Eron, a clinical social worker and singer-songwriter. Her husband, Jim, was a licensed psychologist who killed himself a decade ago after he abruptly stopped taking lithium.
Eron, who grew up in Millburn, calls it "the question of the ages." The circumstances can be completely benign and harmless, she said.
"We left on our regular summer trip to Washington State, and we were about four hours from home when Jim said, 'I forgot to bring my lithium,'Ÿ" Eron said.
"With my acute 20/20 hindsight, clearly we should have just turned around and gone home to get the lithium. But we were immensely ignorant, despite both being mental health professionals."
Once Jim entered the realm of "mania," she said, there was no bringing him back.
Eron recounts her husband's year-long decline and the events leading to his death in "What Goes Up ... Surviving the Manic Episode of a Loved One" (Barricade Books).
Eron, who now lives in Texas, said her book is "what I would have wanted to read then," as she struggled to care for her husband. She considers it a guide for people who care for people who suffer from mental illness.
Mental health professionals have lined up to endorse the book, saying it's a "must-read" for anyone who has a loved one with serious mental illness.
"I have no doubt that her candid description of her experience will be healing to others," said Xavier Amador, a Columbia University professor and a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill's board of directors.
But it's also for those who - because of their credentials - may feel as if they're immune.
Brain disorders don't discriminate, mental health professionals say. Psychologists often have to treat other psychologists for mania and other illnesses.
"Mental illness can be biologically inherited. Secondly, it can be learned," said Samuel Shein, a Teaneck psychologist. "If I had a rejecting and abusive parenting, I can end up feeling very, very inadequate and depressed as an adult.
"Patients learn it or inherit it and so do mental health professionals," he added. "We're the same."
While her husband suffered, Eron searched for resources. Although there were many books on depression, only a few dealt with someone who is manic.
"We were so ignorant," she said. "In kindness to myself, I remind myself that almost none of the current books on bipolar had been written in 1996-97, when all this happened."
In the book, Eron talks of her husband's decline with hopelessness. Her many years of experience were useless once Jim was engulfed in his "horrific" state of being.
At that point, Eron said, she and her husband had just read Kay Redfield Jamison's "Unquiet Mind," in which she describes her own manias, with a certain longing.
"It's part of the illness to want to be off meds, to feel that juice," Eron said. "I think that influenced Jim and reminded him of the power of mania."
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