But just as surely, any suicide in a depressed person arises when such anguish combines with intimate factors from that individual’s genealogy, biochemistry and medical history. But the family changed tack. On Wednesday afternoon, I heard Reza speaking bravely and honestly about his brother’s battle with depression in television interviews. I felt an immense relief. His comments were nuanced and candid. They broke the Iranian cultural taboo against acknowledging mental illness, and underscored a point most everywhere can relate to: families suffer when they are torn apart.
Thirty years after the Shah’s fall, the Pahlavis are no longer anyone’s enemy, and in their grief lies an opportunity to reach out across all those lines that divide. Her Imperial Highness Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi was born in Tehran on March 12, 1963. The Princess’s primary school education was at the Niavaran Special School (1970-78). She attended high school at the Esther Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut (1979-80) followed by Cairo American College, Cairo, Egypt (1980-81). She pursued her undergraduate studies at Bennington College, Vermont (BA in Social Studies), and completed graduate school in 1990 at the School of Social Work.
