Reading it, felt like sitting down and someone recounting a memory to me. That is some real food for thought. I feel like there is a certain degree of will power and acceptance, you have to really want it to go through with it to be able to. Even just walking into the water like that. (In a way part of me feels like if someone wants out that badly, does anyone have a right to stop them, to make them keep suffering? It's a hard thing because for most people time could've made all the difference. But that's me getting side tracked.)

I think his life was really troubled somehow by the way things were in his home life growing up

It sounds like he didn't have it easy, kids needs to be able to count on their parents. Sadly i guess its probably the case for plenty of people, lives shaped, or twisted, by how things were at home.

This is more impressive for being true, to be able to recount it like this, in the sentence structure, only able to include so much.