Reid Bricker: Winnipeg artist with a mental health secret
"You try so hard to mimic everyone around you and to learn the proper social behaviours."
You probably know Reid Bricker — not necessarily the 33-year-old Winnipeg man who went missing Oct. 24, but someone just like him.
Reid Bricker, in many ways, was an average Canadian kid from the suburbs. He played hockey, went to camp, and showed artistic ability at an early age, and yet there were things that set him apart from other kids.
"Right from day one Reid was different from our other two children," said Bricker's mom, Bonnie Bricker. "There were signs all along the way. He was the child who would, if you stepped on a spider, he might cry."
Bricker had his first brush with suicide at the age of 14 when he took the keys to his parents' car and headed to the family's garage.
"I guess nothing was happening too quickly," recalled Bricker's mom, "And he came back in the house and he was crying and he said 'I need to talk to you...I just tried to take my own life.'"
"At first I thought, 'What? What do you mean?' I think I was probably incredulous. Then we hugged and we sat down. He stopped crying and I said, tell me what you're feeling, and he's like, 'no I don't think I need to do that. You kissed me, you hugged me, I feel better, I'm going to go do my homework.'"
Bonnie Bricker brought her son to see the family doctor, who made Reid promise he wouldn't hurt himself without talking to someone first. It would be the first of many attempts to get Bricker the help he needed.
One of the cool kids
Ishai Kones met Bricker around the same time that he tried to take his own life, but had a very different picture of what was going on.
"He was very liked, very social, one of the popular kids. He was good at everything he did, whether it was video games or sports. He was one of the cool kids."
That description of Bricker fits with others offered by friends.
As many of his friends would later learn, Bricker was skilled at keeping his struggles out of the public eye. Carlie Miller dated Bricker for a year and a half when the two were in their early 20s. She, too, deals with a mental health illness and that was something the two bonded over then, and later as friends.
"Reid and I both are — I guess the medical field term is high functioning. We're people who can hold down a job, who can hold down a conversation, who can interact with people and not have them outwardly know or think 'they're sick or they have a mental illness,'" said Miller.
"Being sick and being mentally ill you try so hard to mimic everyone around you and to learn the proper social behaviours and emotions that go along with it."
The result is two very different pictures of Bricker — someone who could be the life of the party one day and fall into a deep depression the next.
"So many people have said to me, 'we're just shocked, we didn't know,' said Erin Lyons, Bricker's older sister.
"Well, of course you didn't know, Reid was still a whole person outside of that one aspect of himself. So I think you can't ever look at another person in your daily life walking down the street towards you, at the grocery story, whatever, and think to yourself, 'I know. I know what that person is like.' Because you don't."
Vanished into the night
Reid Bricker was released from Health Sciences Centre on Oct. 24 at 3:20 am, just hours after police tracked him down at his apartment. The family asked police to search for Bricker after learning he was released from St. Boniface Hospital just one day earlier for another suicide attempt.
"They [police] felt compelled to take him to Health Sciences to have a psychiatric assessment," said Bricker's mother. "And once they got him to the hospital we know he had his cell phone on him because he texted me and he said 'I'm ok, I'm at the hospital. I don't know how long I'll be here.'"
Policies around patient privacy prohibit hospitals in Manitoba from releasing the information of adult patients to family members without patient consent. Bricker's family was therefore not notified of Reid's release, despite this being the third hospital visit in 10 days for an attempted suicide.
The details around Bricker's release from hospital have raised concerns around privacy policies in Manitoba and generated a response from the province's health minister, Sharon Blady.
"I was able to obtain her phone number," said Blady. "I reached out to her, just mom to mom, because while I am the minister of health right now I'm also someone who lives with a mood disorder."
"I know what it's like to go through a depressive bout, I know what it's like to live with mental health issues, and I let her know that my heart was breaking for her and to find out what I could do to be useful in this role."
Bonnie Bricker responded to the minister by agreeing to meet for a roundtable discussion on the privacy policies that surround people in the mental health care system.
As for Reid Bricker, his family is left to put the few pieces they have together.
"He walks from Health Sciences emergency to his studio to pick up a sculpture that he was finishing for his brother to give to a friend," said Bricker's mother.
"He takes that back to his apartment and he leaves it on the window. He leaves his phone, his wallet, his keys. He changes his clothes, he puts an addendum to his suicide note, he signs his last will and testament."
"And he vanishes into night without a trace."