Why did tWitch kill himself?

Stephen "tWitch" Boss was universally loved by everyone who knew him. He brought a smile to everyone’s face with his dancing, his charm, and his positive energy. He was talented, successful, and loved. He had a loving wife and three children who adored him. He had millions of fans around the world who loved him.

So, why did he take his own life?

Many people have chimed in on social media in the last several days, all of them saying some slightly different version of the same tired trope: “You never know what someone is going through - be sure to tell those close to you that you love them.”

Here's what I want to know: did HE know what he was going through?

Is it possible that he was living his life the way OTHERS thought he should live his life, rather than the way he wanted to live it? Did he feel trapped in other people’s expectations? So trapped, in fact, that the only way he could see out of it was a one-way ticket to oblivion?

Did he believe that the way to true happiness was to bring happiness to others? Was he so concerned with making others happy? With making sure that we all saw his success and his apparent happiness?

Did he believe, as many people do, that being successful in the eyes of others would somehow change who he was on the inside? Did he believe that success would make him happy? And if so, when he finally saw that none of this brought him true happiness, that nothing was going to change who he was no matter what, did this push him to end his own life?

He could have walked away from everything, if this would have saved him. Like Dave Chapelle, he could have disappeared, left behind the money and the fame and the success, even his own wife and kids. But if pleasing others was his main concern, the thought of walking away from us in order to save himself would have seemed incredibly selfish to him. It would have made everyone else unhappy. And if you derive your own happiness from the happiness of others, this would have been an unthinkable choice. Perhaps, he thought, it would be better to simply end it all than to be viewed as a selfish person who let everyone down.

I don’t think Twitch killed himself because people forgot to check in with him, or failed to tell him that they loved him. If he was unhappy with how he saw himself, it wouldn’t matter how much other people loved him. Perhaps he didn’t love himself, and perhaps he didn’t even know this about himself. Or perhaps he did know, but felt hopelessly trapped in a life that he didn’t love, and that hadn’t changed who he was.

We all say that we want our loved ones to be successful – perhaps we should forget about that, and instead wish for our loved ones (and ourselves) to find true happiness, and true joy.

May Stephen “tWitch” Boss rest in peace, and may his family find solace and comfort during this difficult time.