My beautiful older sister, Bess — a smart, passionate, popular soccer star — killed herself when she was 17. She took my parents’ gun, drove to a park, and shot herself in the head. The effect on my family was profound. Though I’m generally a warm person, for the next 15 years, I avoided people with big emotions, or people who seemed fragile. For me, they were dangerous, unpredictable, unhelpable. I didn’t want to get too close, for fear of being responsible for them in some way. I limited my range of empathy because I was sure if I went too far, I’d be swallowed whole.