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We Need to Talk About Suicide

Opening up a Dialog to Save Lives

By Stripes JoplinPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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It's hard to accept that we might be part of our own problem when it comes to mental health and suicide prevention. It shouldn't take the suicides of beloved celebrities to open up a dialog about something 123 people do every day.

Why are we so mournful when someone commits suicide, but dismissive of the issues that cause it? Why don't we care enough about the people who have mental health problems, drug addictions, or who belong to oppressed minority groups, or who are living in inescapable poverty until it's too late? It's not just depression, so why is it that when we do finally talk about suicide, the only catalyst we really touch on is depression?

Kate Spade's dad spoke to her an hour before she hanged herself and she had been planning a trip. Anthony Bourdain had described himself as "happy in ways I didn't think I ever would be" in the months before his suicide. The people closest to them wouldn't have described either as depressed, yet they killed themselves within days of each other. Why, then, does depression monopolize what little conversation there is about suicide?

Why don't we talk about other contributing factors? Not only outside depression in the scope of mental health, but outside of the scope of mental health entirely. Why don't we talk about the fact that being suicidal doesn't always mean there will be a direct attempt at suicide? Sometimes it manifests as dangerous and reckless behavior that could result in one's death. Other times it manifests as apathy and a lack of willingness to care for oneself in the most basic of ways. A person can genuinely wish to die and still not feel like they have (for lack of a better phrase) "the guts" to do something so direct. Those feelings and behaviors are all valid and they need to be addressed alongside the more obvious, direct manifestations of suicidal behavior and suicide attempts.

Why don't we talk about the societal contributors? Why don't we talk about the empaths who commit suicide because they're exhausted by the suffering of not only themselves but everyone around them? Why don't we talk about victims of sexual assault and sexual abuse who commit suicide because no one believes them or no one will help them? Why don't we talk about the people who commit suicide because they work 100 hours a week and even though they might love their job, they're so exhausted that the idea of facing just one more day is unbearable? Why don't we talk about the bullying suicides? Why don't we talk about suicides in the LGBT+ community? Why don't we talk about the moms who commit suicide after struggling with postpartum depression? Why is it that we're only willing to talk about suicide after it happens and why are we only willing to see suicide as an end result of depression?

Why don't we talk honestly about any of this?!

How dare we mourn those we lose when we won't talk about suicide while they're alive? How dare we offer empty encouragement ("get help") when we know most people can't afford to get help, or can't find the help they need? We shame people with mental health issues and we scorn drug addicts until they hang themselves or overdose, and then everyone is upset for about a week, and then everyone forgets and moves on with their lives.

It's unacceptable, and I hope you'll join me in putting my foot down and saying enough is enough—and sticking to it. How many loved ones are we going to write Facebook tributes to before we realize that there is a flaw in our handling? That even though we may be shining a glaring light on it now, we don't do it when it matters. This makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but I'm willing to admit to being part of the problem if it means that we're addressing the problem: Anthony Bourdain's suicide hit me hard. Harder than you'd think for someone who didn't know him. I cried for days. That heavy, forceful, silent crying that feels like you're trying to push the pain out of your body through every pore. Where you're crying so hard that if you could make any sound at all, you'd be screaming.

Anthony Bourdain and I were bonded in a way a lot of people won't understand, but those who do, really do. We're both recovered heroin addicts (or recovering, depending on your philosophy). If you've never been a heroin addict, you won't understand the kind of bond formed between two people who have gone through detox and withdrawals and come out the other side. Even if two people know nothing else about each other, that fact forms a deep and instantaneous bond. It is the kind of trauma that breaks down all other barriers and creates common ground, because it is a harrowing, profound experience. If you've never gone through it, I hope you never have to.

Reading "CNN's Anthony Bourdain Dead at 61" meant more than just "Anthony Bourdain is dead." It meant that after all this fighting and all this struggling to get clean and stay clean and conquer my addiction and get my mental health issues under control, something could happen 30, 40, 50 years from now that brings it all crashing down. It means that I am not immune, and I might die by my own hand anyway. It scares me. It makes me angry; sad. For me and for him and for every single person who has ever wrestled with addiction or suicide. We can never let our guard down, because it's always right around the corner, waiting to pounce.

In a country where no one can afford to get help for problems that, left unaddressed, can snowball and might cause someone to commit suicide, we need to be that support network as often as we can. Which is so much easier said than done, I know. It's going to take more than saying "I'm here for you" when someone posts a sad status online. It's going to take more than posting tributes to the people we love after we've lost them.

First and foremost, we need to free ourselves of the shame we feel when discussing this topic. It is not shameful or dramatic to feel suicidal. It is valid and needs to be taken seriously. We have got to start being nicer to each other. We need to start being accepting and welcoming of people and things that are different. I don't know why human beings seem to have a knee-jerk reaction of "I don't understand it, therefore I fear, hate, and must destroy it" to things that are different or unfamiliar.

Once we shed the shame we feel in discussing suicide and pair it with being more kind to each other in general, a lot of other roadblocks to the right conversations about suicide start to disappear. We can all take steps to create a world wherein anyone can speak up and say "hey y'all—I'm not okay. I think I need help" without being afraid that we'll be laughed at or shamed or met with hate-speech or encouragements of self-harm and suicide.

We need to get better at recognizing the signs in someone's behavior because a person who needs help isn't always going to ask for it. Anthony Bourdain skipped dinner the night he killed himself. Everyone thought it was strange, but no one checked on him until he didn't show up for breakfast the following morning. How long did he sit in that room wondering if anyone was coming to check on him before he killed himself? An hour? Four hours? All night? How long before he gave up? I'm sure everyone who was there is torturing themselves with those same questions, but those are the questions we need to ask ourselves right now so that we can recognize behaviors in other people we love that could indicate self-harm or suicide.

Just encouraging people who are suffering to get help isn't enough. Posting a status saying "hey, I'm here for you" isn't enough. Writing an article for Vocal about it isn't enough. We can all do more. We have to. Suicide rates in the US are at a 30-year high and we have to do something about it now. Otherwise, it's going to be every month, every week, every day, that we wake up to find someone we love is gone and realize that we have all the right words to save them now that it's too late.

How many times are we going to let it be too late?

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Stripes Joplin

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