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If you'd met him in person, maybe you, as a fan, could have had some positive effect on him, without necessarily needing to saying anything, much more likely I

If you'd met him in person, maybe you, as a fan, could have had some positive effect on him, without necessarily needing to saying anything, much more likely I think than just sending him a message as a stranger which I can't imagine helping. In that way, it's reasonable to not want to scare him off. You were taking the trouble to take a plane to see him, and he did agree to it, so he expected it would be positive too. Sad to hear.

tombert 5y ago
Yeah, I definitely think you're right about this on every single rational level. That said, I think guilt is often an irrational feeling. I barely knew the guy, and there's a large part of me that knows I did basically everything I could possibly do to help. I wasn't a family member, I wasn't his spouse, I wasn't a childhood friend, I was a dude who had an SA account as a teenager and subscribed to his YouTube channel and found his LinkedIn. ....That said, and I will acknowledge that this isn't the most rational thought that I have ever had, but I do wonder if him saying that to me was a cry for help, like he was reaching out to anyone to show some sort of interest in his well-being. It's silly, and of course that logic will never end; I'm sure could convince myself that I'm responsible for 9/11 if I tried hard enough. As I said in a sister thread, I do have an appointment with a shrink in a few days. I am reasonably sure they will either be able to help me or at least will be able to refer me to someone who can.