:banghead:
It sounds like that would be no, based on that long article and the video.
My heart and gratitude goes out to Josh for being willing to publicly sort through his feelings to help others. It's heartbreaking to imagine Leanne coming back to stand at the end of the driveway for a moment, contemplating... what? going back in? It must absolutely twist Josh's heart to imagine that moment.
What I guess I'm still not clear on - maybe because of the editing? or the questions the reporter was asking? is whether or not she suffered from depression before the end of their trip? Was she a depressed person who put on a happy face, or was she a happy person who became situationally depressed after their trip?
I got from the video and the article:
- Josh seemed to be saying that he hadn't considered Leanne to have been battling depression during their marriage.
- She was a people pleaser (which could be a warning sign, stuffing her own feelings so she wouldn't bother anyone with them, but not in and of itself a huge red flag) and she had a lot of energy and happiness during their trip.
- It was weeks before their return that she started showing any signs of depression or anxiety (in fact in the trip video of her walking on the beach, she's saying "I've been anxious for weeks" while she was talking about their trip coming to a close).
- It manifested itself as being uncharacteristically anxious about procedural things like insurance and registration and a bit unsocial at Christmas (but she was also said to have normally needed her "me time" so this must have gone beyond the normal alone time she preferred).
- Something unclear about her weight loss and hormones?
- When she went for a walk that day and called up the stairs to Josh, he heard something like 'peace' in her voice, but in the context of her current mood, that peaceful tone was out of place. (I get that).
- In his gut, he believed she'd committed suicide within 3 hours of her absence, but his heart hoped that she'd just run away.
So I guess what's bewildering to me is that I'd kind of been left with the impression after they found her body that she'd been battling depression in their marriage and the trip they took was a distraction from that depression - and when they arrived home, it sadly came back to roost with a vengeance.
And now what I think Josh was saying was that Leanne MUST HAVE been depressed, obviously since she committed suicide, but that she hadn't appeared even to her husband to have been a depressed person during their marriage, and that the first sign of anything being amiss was a few weeks before returning home.
The reason that bothers me is that it sounds like there were no signs of depression that couldn't have easily been attributed to post-trip blues, money stress and exhaustion. In fact everyone around her DID pick up on those things - they didn't go unnoticed - and asked her about them, and tried to help her. And Leanne herself was open enough at least about the anxiety to talk in their travel video about how she was feeling, and she told Josh, and she told Josh's dad how she was feeling - she was telling them enough to make her appear as if she were being open about her feelings.
It bothers me because I guess I was left with the idea that Leanne had some history of depression and had been giving off red flags and people just didn't pick up on them until after it was far too late. But from what Josh said, her emotions seemed appropriate to the situation, if excessive for Leanne's personality, and she wasn't someone who suffered from depression ordinarily. Which is scary to me. You can't eagle eye all loved ones who are uncharacteristically anxious when coming to a stressful time of life.
But then - if she hadn't been depressed in the traditional sense during their marriage, how did Josh's gut tell him "suicide" when she took off, and not "runaway" or "abducted"? On some level he must have known she was seriously ill.
