Turns out the feelings don’t get any less complicated

This piece was originally published by xoJane (RIP) on January 9, 2015 with the title “IT HAPPENED TO ME: My Dad Died in Prison Years Ago, but He Keeps Breaking My Heart.”

My father died at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital on March 1, 2008 at 12:08 p.m. It was a Saturday. I opted to stay home and watch TV all day because I was in the midst of a months-long depression.

The phone rang the first time at 9:56 p.m. It was my mom. I knew to sit down even before I picked up and heard her sobbing on the other…

Patrick Warren, Sr., Shot to Death by Officer During Mental Health Welfare Check

Patrick Warren, Sr., a pastor in Killeen, TX, was killed by officer Reynaldo Contreras during a welfare check on Sunday. When Warren showed signs of emotional distress, his family called 911 for assistance. Killeen is located in Bell County, which employs Mental Health Deputies—officers trained in crisis intervention whose goal is to divert folks in crisis away from hospitals and jails by providing them with alternative resources in the community. Warren’s family was told a Mental Health Deputy was unavailable and an officer was dispatched instead.

Contreras responded to Warren’s home and left when Warren told him to. Moments later…

One of the biggest myths about suicide is that people end their lives in larger numbers during the holidays. This is not true.

I used to make sure to discuss this myth every year on my social channels because it’s inaccurate, and I got tired of seeing media pushes and careless social sharing that just perpetuated it. I find that we—the media, the suicide prevention and suicidology fields, people in general—have a habit of discussing suicide when we can sensationalize it (e.g., during the holidays, when a celebrity ends their life) or during a month (September) arbitrarily designated as the…

(This post was originally published on the Live Through This blog on September 5, 2020.)

So, let’s talk about this weird hierarchy around “serious” or “medically serious” suicide attempts versus “non-serious” ones. In short, it’s harmful to all of us with lived experience of suicidal intensity of any kind.

Based on what we know about suicide attempts, there are over 1.2 million each year — and those are the ones we’re able to count. Many folks attempt suicide and don’t seek care — because they’re afraid to tell anyone, because they’re afraid they will be hospitalized against their will (and…

(This post was originally published on the Live Through This blog on September 1, 2020.)

I always feel so pressured to participate in Suicide Prevention Month when I don’t particularly want to and don’t, at this point, see much value in it.

The reality is that all the same messaging goes out over and over and over, from every possible suicide or mental health adjacent org. …

Suicide is all over the news this week. It’s hard to avoid right now. It’s a difficult topic to think and talk about on the best of days, let alone when you’re being bombarded left and right by news reports and social media posts.

As with Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain’s suicide death is hitting a lot of us pretty hard. First, know that it’s okay to step away from social for a little while to practice some self-care — whatever that may look like for you. Second, please be informed regarding how to share this news with your networks. …

You’ve probably heard by now that Kate Spade died from suicide. Please be informed regarding how to share this news with your networks. So many of the media articles coming out are filled with sensationalistic garbage that misses the point, which is that she was in deep despair and, for whatever reason, couldn’t find her way out of it.

Here are a few pointers for sharing on the topic and the conversations to follow:

1. Learn and use appropriate language around suicide. We’re moving away from “committed suicide” because it’s pathologizing, and it implies sin or crime. …

I learned last night that Amy Bleuel, founder of Project Semicolon, died by suicide last week. In sitting with the news and trying to find clarity, I keep thinking of my colleagues. Suicide prevention work is done almost exclusively by people who have lost someone to suicide or who have experienced their own suicidality. Often, the calling to suicide prevention comes close on the heels of a near miss with an attempt, or the suicide death of someone we love, and it comes with urgency. In that way, it puts many of us in a precarious position: we so desperately…