September 10-16, 2017 is National Suicide Prevention Week. Personally, I think every week should be suicide prevention week. The number of suicides in girls age 15-19 has doubled since 2007, and that terrifies me. I wanted to know a little more about what this special week involves, so I did a Google search and found the American Association of Suicidology (yes, there really is such an organization, www.suicidology.org). I went to their website and clicked on the link for warning signs. Here are some of them:
substance abuse
anxiety
feeling trapped
hopelessness
withdrawal
anger
mood changes
Sounds like a typical teenage girl to me.
Believe me, I’m not making light of this at all. If you’ve read my book, An Imperfect Pilgrim (www.animperfectpilgrim.com), you know suicide has touched my family. When my younger brother, who was the last surviving member of my family no less, took his own life alone in his apartment one night, my entire world crumbled into unimaginable grief from which I thought I would never recover. That was 26 years ago next month and I’m getting choked up even now as I write this.
What frightens me is that sometimes the warning signs are hidden under strained smiles and false assurances of “there’s nothing wrong.” These people can slip away when others aren’t paying attention or, in all fairness, don’t realize how troubled the suicidal person is. Joey, my brother, was in Special Forces and he and his comrades were trained to know the warning signs of a suicidal person. But no one in his unit saw it coming. I still have guilt over ignoring my gut feeling the last time I spoke to him on the phone, when I heard something in his voice but dismissed it when he assured me he was fine. And that was after my own suicide attempt, so I should have known better.
That’s why my mission is to get the conversation started. Unless it’s within a trusted therapeutic relationship with a mental health professional, chances are nobody is going to volunteer that they want to end their life. So we as friends and family need to make the first move. If you know someone who is troubled, sit down with them. Ask them what’s going on. Call them. Every day. We can’t always stop someone from shooting themselves at one o’clock in the morning, but maybe we can throw them a lifeline, let them know they are not alone. One way to do this is by revealing our own pain and struggles. I say “reveal” because human tendency is to stay in the closet about it. But that only adds to the isolation we feel.
Heck, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have any answers. But I did discover something. When I started doing author events after the release of my book, I would talk to people about my struggles. That seemed to allow them to open up about their own. They would lean in closer to me and whisper so no one nearby could hear. There’s shame in depression, there’s shame in despair. There’s shame in isolation. But to get beyond the shame and despair and isolation, we have to be vulnerable and brave and talk about our own pain (if you’ve read Brene Brown’s outstanding book, Daring Greatly, you’ll know what I’m talking about).
I fully believe in order to connect and, ultimately, to heal, we have to remove the veil of shame, be open and honest about ourselves, be brave enough to say “I also thought about killing myself when I was in college/lost my job/got divorced/got kicked out of my house because I told my parents I’m gay.”
What breaks my heart the most is when I hear of a young person who has committed suicide. I think of the happiness they will never know. I think of the fulfilled life they will never have. I want to say to these people, “This is not your end. You can step back from that ledge. Your life can and will get better. Just please, please hang on. I used to be where you are now, and your pain can end. I know this to be true.”
So let’s get this conversation started. What is your story? Have you been in that dark place? Did you move beyond? How? Are you still there and if so, how are you getting through each day? Is there just one person you can talk to? Or, is there someone you are worried about? Have you been affected by suicide?
When we start the conversation, we can begin to heal.