Depression was the furthest thing from Susan Bryant's mind when she found out her husband had taken his own life.
"I needed that little red light to go off in my brain that didn't go off which said he is depressed," she said from her north Brisbane home two months on from the death of her husband, gastroenterologist Andrew Bryant.
"I never got to that point and ... it came so quickly."
Her letter, intended only for a few close colleagues and neighbours as a "self-defence" to explain what happened, spread like wildfire and shone a light on the everyday signs of depression so many of us experience.
"I was trying to say that suicide and depression are not shameful things, Andrew made a bad choice, I am not saying ever that suicide is a good choice, but not talking about it is not going to help people," she said.
"Death is confronting, but suicide adds that extra level of shame, embarrassment and guilt, which it shouldn't."
Sitting in her living room, with the sound of magpies calling outside, the mother-of-four spoke of how her husband's sleepless nights and work stresses, which had become accentuated in February, weren't out of the ordinary.
"It was normal for him to be tired, normal for him to be busy, normal for him to be stressed, it is a stressful profession; you are looking after people who die, who are sick," she said.
"I was so focused on the fact he was tired all the time and wanted him to see someone about his sleeping ... I was focusing on the symptoms but not looking at the cause.
"The more I read about depression, the more obvious in retrospect it becomes what was happening to Andrew so that's frustrating," she said.
"All the guilt and everything that goes with suicide for the survivors is compounded, it was so obvious in retrospect but part of being in the medical profession, it masked what was happening," she said.
The cyclist, classical music enthusiast and staunch Wallabies supporter was as dedicated to his family as he was to his Spring Hill practice, a position that took him more than 15 years of dedication and hard work to get to.
"Most of them (doctors) love the work they do and they are paid well but it comes at a huge cost in terms of your mental health," she said.
"It (mental illness) is compounded in the medical profession.
"Since he died I think about the fact that he never talked about his own mental health ... he didn't ever whinge or ask for help," she said.
A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2016 found medical professionals were exposed to higher rates of stress than other professions, a fact Australian Medical Association Queensland President Bill Boyd said was on the "front burner" of discussions between medico representatives.
"The people who get themselves often to the pinnacle of their profession set very high standards for themselves," Dr Boyd said.
"If things are not working out for whatever reason they may well see it as a statement of failure on themselves and take that position very seriously indeed."
Mrs Bryant said mandatory reporting to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency by doctors of "at-risk" medicos seeking out help for mental health issues was a "barrier" for doctors and needed to be reviewed.
In Queensland, if a doctor treating a medical practitioner has concerns about their patient and believe they could prove a risk to the public, the treating doctor is required to report the circumstances to authorities.
"To get to that point and then if you worry that you are suffering from something that not only takes away your ability to practice as a doctor but takes away your income as well, do you wonder that they would hesitate to go and see someone and perhaps say they are struggling?" she said.
"You can understand the reasons why they have it in place but mandatory reporting is a real issue in the medical profession."
Dr Boyd said AMA Queensland was pushing for the mandatory requirement to be removed.
"The sick doctor ... who would like to get professional advice may be reticent to do that for fear of being ... reported to an authority," he said.
"AMA Queensland has been pushing hard for the mandatory parts of the sanction to be taken out, it hasn't happened yet."
In 2015 AMA Queensland launched the Resilience on the Run pilot program to help junior doctors cope with high levels of stress and anxiety, which this year was given the green light by the state government for a fully funded, state-wide roll out, Dr Boyd said.
"It is designed to help them deal with the sorts of stresses they have to come across every day so that when they come across these stresses they can handle them a lot better," he said.
The days are getting harder, not easier, for Mrs Bryant, who went through a "numb daze" in the month after Andrew's death but letters pouring in from people who have been affected by suicide have helped her get through.
"I think I have struck a chord, the number of people who said they have had a member of their family commit suicide ... I don't know, for a lot of people it has enabled them to talk about it," she said.
She said the focus was now on remembering the adventurous life Andrew lived.
"I think I need to focus on my own life, my children's life, moving on and I want to get the opportunity to think about Andrew's life rather than Andrew's death," she said.
"In lots of ways it is ironic that someone who loved life like Andrew did would take his own life.
"I don't want that to define him for his children or his potential grandchildren.
"I am just someone that something has happened to."