Courtney B. Vance opens up about how he dealt with his father's suicide: 'You can't go around it!'
Courtney B. Vance admits that he found "no way" to grieve for his father than to go "straight through" it as he opens up about the family tragedy more than 30 years on.
Courtney B. Vance found "no way" to grieve for his father than to go "straight through" it.
The 63-year-old actor lost his father Conroy in the early 1990s when he took his own life and admitted that the only way he could face his grief was to tackle it head on as he claimed that any other way would have "delayed" the process of coming to terms with things.
He told People:" Sometimes there's no way through it but straight through it. You can't go over it, you can't go below it, you can't go around it. And if you do, you just delay the process."
The 'Ben Is Back' star recounts the story of his family tragedy as part of his new book 'The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain and Reclaiming Their Power' and joined forces with Dr. Robin L. Smith - who is known for having been the therapist-in-residence at 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' - to create “a moving combination of memoir, psychology and practical tools".
She said: "Black boys and black men are dying at a higher rate of suicide. If black boys and men could grieve, if they could cry, if they could weep, then some of the domestic violence and violence towards self and others would diminish."
Courtney previously explained that he believed it was a necessity that people have someone to chat to in order to benefit their mental health.
He said: "I think we all need to find a good person to chit chat with and just like we tune up our cars, we need to tune up ourselves. Ain’t nobody else gonna help us if we don’t help ourselves."
'The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain and Reclaiming Their Power' is due for release on November 7.
