The suicide rates keep rising, so why do we keep doing the same things over and over?

(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. …

Ten years ago today, I tried to kill myself.

Then

I was flailing.

I was three years into a volatile relationship with a woman who swept me off my feet and into a whirlwind romance in the summer of 2003. We lived in a one bedroom apartment, all wood-paneled walls and low-pile beige carpet, in downtown Johnson City, TN. …

How to end myths, misconceptions and negative attitudes towards mental health and suicide

In response to an essay published on xoJane Thursday entitled, “My Former Friend’s Death Was a Blessing,” two mental health activists who have lived the struggle discuss the power and potential of language and attitudes to harm and to heal.

Dese’Rae L. Stage is an artist and the creator of Live Through This, a series of portraits and true stories of suicide attempt survivors across the U.S. Leah Harris is a writer and advocate for holistic and creative arts approaches to healing from trauma, addiction, and emotional distress.

Des: Leah, why do you do the work you do?
Leah: It’s because of my own direct experiences, as well as a long family history of such experiences. I first remember feeling suicidal at the age of seven, and attempted suicide several times in adolescence. I was given a ton of psychiatric diagnoses and lots of prescriptions, but no one taught me how to cope with the things that happened to me when I was very young. So I continued to use drugs and do self-destructive stuff to soothe myself. I was one of those people who was written off as “beyond help.” At 18 years old, I ended up in a disgusting, squalid “board and care” home. My treatment team told me that I would likely need to be there for life. It was a miracle that I got out of that place. But that was just the beginning. The shame and self-hatred were harder to get rid of. It would take years for me to believe that I could have the kind of life that others take for granted. Eventually, I proved everyone wrong about my prognosis. This is not because I am some super special person; it’s because I finally got the non-judgmental support I needed. I was able to connect with other people who understood what I was going through and believed in my capacity to heal. They created the space for me to begin to trust myself. It was all pure luck that I was able to reverse that horrible downward spiral, but it shouldn’t be a matter of luck. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I experienced. …