I wanted to highlight a high-profile case currently on trial in Massachusetts. Michelle Carter, 20, is accused of causing the death of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III, back in 2014.

I remember when the story first broke on major news platforms because the initial details were heartbreaking, and only continued to unfold more terrible pieces of the tragedy.

On July 12, 2014 Conrad Roy III parked in a Kmart parking lot and syphoned carbon monoxide into his vehicle. His suicide, I’m sure, was shocking despite his past struggles with mental illness and suicidal ideation. I don’t see any family or friends actually prepared enough to deal with such horrible news, no matter the circumstances or history of behavior.

Roy’s death affected so many in his life, especially his girlfriend of over a year, Michelle Carter. However, Carter did not get enough time to grieve the loss of her boyfriend, whom she had never actually met with in-person, because the attention quickly turned from grieving girlfriend to criminal suspect. The public quickly demonized Carter once evidence surfaced that she may have had an active part to play in Conrad’s suicide, via their text exchanges.

Now, nearly three years after Conrad’s death and Michelle’s arrest, the trials have began so that the state of Massachusetts can debate and decide whether Michelle Carter deserves to take the responsibility for Conrad’s actions, or if other factors, beyond anyone’s control, pushed Roy to the decision to take his own life.

Can blame really be placed on a single person or reason?

This is the question I continue to ask myself when I read updates on the case. So many aspects of each side of the argument actually make sense to me, making this controversy so difficult to separate into simple categories of guilty vs. not guilty. I am having a difficult time deciding if Carter really should be put on trial for how she handled Roy’s ongoing depression and suicidal thoughts. I feel that what she did, as evidenced by their thousands of text exchanges, was not the right way to handle such situations, but I also have a hard time agreeing that she should be criminalized for her actions.

I don’t bring this topic up thinking it is an easy debate and I certainly don’t feel my opinion on the matter is important. At the end of the day, many lives were affected by the result of Conrad’s suicide and my opinions and the opinion of others are useless to those grieving for their losses. And let me be clear, I am including Michelle Carter and her loved ones in my empathy because her life and that of her family and friends also have been affected indefinitely.

So, why am I struggling to decide if Michelle Carter should be prosecuted by a judge for the role she played in Conrad Roy’s death?

If you have followed any part of this story, you know of the implications against Carter that she “made” Roy end his life. Countless texts have shown multiple conversations between Roy and Carter throughout their entire relationship. Many of those texts show that Carter not only understood Roy and his struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts, but that Carter also encouraged Roy to go through with his plan.

The evidence is there. Michelle Carter’s responses to Conrad when discussing his motivation and hesitations to follow through with his suicide are absolutely true, and utterly disturbing. At one point, Carter’s messages seem to be challenging Roy’s commitment to his desire to die, and then actually urged him to get back inside his vehicle and finish what he started on the night Conrad took his own life.

Looking at just those messages in which Carter seems to berate Roy into planning and accomplishing the act, I could agree that Michelle Carter should be held accountable to some degree.

However, Roy and Carter were in a relationship for over a year. The messages from Michelle encouraging Conrad to follow through and kill himself were only a portion of the content of the messages, and seemed to be more encouraging nearing the end of Conrad’s life. Other texts from Carter show that she encouraged Roy to seek help for his depression, and even shared her own struggles of depression and mental illness with her boyfriend.

At one point, Michelle Carter tried to bargain with Conrad by suggesting that if he sought professional help, she would do the same.

The argument in court is that Michelle bullied Conrad; she manipulated him to make him believe she loved him and had his best interests at heart. Prosecutors and law enforcement looked at other forms of social interaction from Carter, only to find her facebook account, seemingly reveling in her new role of “grieving girlfriend”.

Again, some of the allegations seem pretty solid when you’re looking at the words right in front of you. And I could go for the defense that texts and facebook messages can easily be misinterpreted, but I’m not making excuses for Carter. I’m looking at this logically, and the electronic sharing isn’t really helping Carter appear innocent.

But, I do not know Michelle Carter and I do not know Conrad Roy III, which means I don’t know what a typical interaction with them would have been.

One major piece of this case, though, is the fact that Conrad Roy III made a choice only he could truly make; he made the decision to implement a plan to end his own life. I am absolutely not blaming the victim and I don’t wish such dark thoughts on any person. I am stating the logic and the direction that Carter’s lawyers are partially focusing on, which is that Conrad acted out a plan to commit suicide on his own. He was physically alone in his vehicle and remained inside until he was gone. I cannot imagine the emotional torture a person must be in to complete such a heartbreaking act. The issue though, is that Conrad could have stopped at anytime, he could have called for help (instead of calling Michelle, who told him he should follow through with this) and Conrad could have told Michelle to f*** off, drive home and never speak to her again.

Except, Conrad did not do any of those things because depression has a way of doing that to a person. Depression has a way of making people convince themselves that they are worthless and undeserving of happiness. Depression has a knack of finding others to treat you a certain way and bring you down even more.

I understand that the complexity of relationships and psychological manipulation can really twist reality (and I don’t just mean manipulation from other people because our own minds can manipulate our version of reality).

Reports from Michelle’s defense team claim that she was battling symptoms of mental illness. Allegedly she suffered from depression, turned to cutting and was influenced by negative side effects of a prescribed antidepressant, causing increased impulsivity and decreased her ability to empathize. According to her defense team, Michelle Carter was “involuntarily intoxicated” and was suffering “a grandiose delusion that she alone could help Conrad Roy III find his way to heaven, leaving her on Earth to care for his family”.

Maybe this defense seems like an excuse, but Carter was prescribed Celexa, which she began taking in April of 2014. Celexa (or Citalopram) is an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) and is used to treat depression. SSRIs target the frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for regulating mood, behavior, emotions, planning, problem solving, memory, impulse control and decision-making.

Citalopram, like most drugs, can come with minor and/or major side effects. The side effects that Michelle allegedly experienced were that of her impulsivity and emotional regulation. In rare cases, Citalopram can actually cause hallucinations, paranoia and delusions. Considering the time frame in which Carter was taking Celexa and some of her behavior that she exhibited leading up to, and following Conrad’s death, this argument does not appear to be far-fetched. Add in the fact that most antidepressants have increased negative side-effects for teens and young adults, and the possibility that Carter was influenced by a negative reaction to a fairly new medication prescribed to her.

I am not saying she is excused from how she reacted toward Roy before and during his suicide, but maybe the case for an adverse reaction to Celexa allows for some kind of explanation.

Another avenue to explore is the idea that Roy was dealing with ongoing suicidal ideation. He had previous suicide attempts and clearly his ideation did not lessen. The texts shared between Carter and Roy showed just how much Conrad thought about ending his own life and that Carter had tried to convince him life was worth living. I think the fact that Conrad confided in Michelle was a positive sign that he was at least willing to talk about his feelings and could have sought help had Michelle been forthcoming to the correct people to help Conrad. However, when someone is persistent upon an idea like suicide and continues to obsess over it, listening to them and trying to help that person can take an immense toll on the supportive friend.

There are professionals that are trained to understand and listen to the darkest thoughts of disturbed minds. Even then, it is recommended that those professionals also have therapists of their own because taking on the emotions of others takes a mental toll on a person. This is not to discourage anyone from speaking up about his or her inner struggles, but to take some pressure off of the ones whose own mental health becomes influenced when trying to help a friend with their persistent, untreated suicidality.

This is an issue that I can confidently say that I have some personal understanding of. Without making this too much about me, I will share that I knew someone with obsessive thoughts of suicide. I have known many people, actually, but this one stuck with me for a long time. I felt like my own life and energy was leaving me sucked dry and I tried so hard to be a positive support to confide in.

Knowing how it feels to have someone constantly talk to you about how much better off the world would be without them, I wonder if Michelle Carter gave so much of her positive energy to Conrad Roy III that she felt like she couldn’t fight her boyfriend’s suicidal urges and thought that supporting his ideation and plans to die were more helpful than disagreeing with him.

I plan to follow this story throughout its entire course because with all of the evidence presented on both sides of this issue, I cannot confidently agree with one side or the other. I know this isn’t about me, but it starts a really powerful conversation of how our society may focus on mental health treatment in the future. This story also shows us how right and wrong cannot totally play a role in certain issues and within the justice system.

Can we really scrutinize Michelle Carter based on the evidence her defense has presented? Does it actually, truly matter that she supported her boyfriend’s decision to commit suicide?

Conrad Roy III is no longer alive, leaving guilt, grief, sadness and blame on so many people who cared about him. Michelle Carter is to live with the consequences of her actions, regardless of the outcome of her trial, and her family and closest friends will be wondering what went wrong and why they couldn’t see what was happening.

These two young lives have forever been altered and that, alone, is enough to make my heart hurt.