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 time to RaIsE aWaReNeSs around the issue. …

(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 such disruptions could end up with results like job and income loss, which could put a person already in distress in further distress), because they don’t think it was serious enough. I’d wager that “serious” or “medically serious” attempts are in the minority. …

(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 want to save others from suicide that we forget to save ourselves. …

It’s been two years since Robin Williams died, and I still can’t watch anything he’s been in without feeling a deep pang of sadness. For decades, we watched him play characters that touched different parts of us. The range of emotion he masterfully portrayed over the years — and in so many genres, though he was primarily a comedian — is no doubt why we felt so attached to him. Robin, through his work, reflected our various selves back at us — hilarious and vulnerable, a little off-kilter, addled, wild, hopeful.

Now that he’s gone, it’s plain how ubiquitous his work is, how he infiltrated our hearts. Flip through Netflix right now. The Crazy Ones. Insomnia. Good Will Hunting. …

I’ve been watching the headlines, the hashtags trending on Twitter, the growing list of names of black people whose lives were taken by law enforcement officials (Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Melissa Ventura—all in one week) out of fear, lack of training, institutionalized racism.

I’m a white woman. I will never know the brand of adversity that comes with living in a black body. I want to help, but I don’t often know what to say or do.

There is nothing I can say that could appropriately express the hurt I feel with the news of every new death; every new, violent video showing the truth of a black man being murdered by police; every statement a newly grieving mother should never have to make. …