The death of Freddie Mercury brought his close friend Queen guitarist Brian May to the brink of suicide. Seriously depressed by worries about his own future, exhausted after years of touring, and unable to come to terms with the loss of Freddie, he found himself facing a complete mental and physical breakdown.
In desperation, he booked himself into a clinic in Arizona, which he describes as a cross between a university, a health farm and a mental asylum.
“I regarded myself as completely sick”, he revealed to me. “I was wounded and very much in pieces. I went into a serious depression. I was subsumed by feelings of loss.
“Being in a touring band puts your friends and family on hold and you’re focused on one thing - the band. When that finishes, you’Õre out on a limb. The band finished, so there was a terrible feeling of loss - the band was my family. We lost Freddie and my Dad died at almost the same time. I didnÕt want to live. IÕd lost myself completely. I coasted along and got by somehow, but I couldnÕt get myself into gear. So I had to go into this place where I was isolated and removed from my life. Gradually, the suicidal feelings went away.”
The clinic, he says, helped him unravel his emotional problems. “I talked about my feelings and it worked fabulously. The problem had been me. Once I started to fix me, life started to work again.”
Freddie had confided to Brian and other members of his inner circle his HIV diagnosis. “We lied through our teeth to protect his privacy”, says May.
“Maybe I was in denial myself. We were all hoping a cure would be found. But we agreed we’d make life as comfortable and as private for Freddie as we could”. - Daily Mail