My newest byline was such an important one for me to write, so I’ll just get right to it today, friends! September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. I knew I wanted to write something, but I wasn’t quite sure what. After I thought about it for a bit, the idea seemed so obvious and it became my fourth piece for The Fix…
In 2019, it seems like we already know so much about suicide. It’s easy to look up statistics and, unfortunately, it’s rare that a day goes by without at least one headline or mention on the news. We know all the facts, don’t we? Despite all that, though, what we rarely do is talk about suicide. We don’t have open conversations about the people we’ve lost and what the suicide of a loved one leaves in its wake. Maybe we’re scared. Maybe the topic just makes us too uncomfortable altogether.
For whatever reason, we just don’t talk about it.
As you already know, I’ve never been like that. I’ve talked about losing my father and I’ve written openly about it. A lot. Some people say that I shouldn’t talk about suicide and while that may be the right choice for them, it’s never been the right choice for me.
Here’s an excerpt of the piece, which I hope will help us all to start a conversation about this hard-to-talk-about topic…
There’s a catch-22 when it comes to suicide: People are reluctant to talk about it because it’s a sensitive and deeply personal topic, but it remains a sensitive topic because people don’t talk about it. So we find ourselves tip-toeing around suicide altogether, which doesn’t help anyone. For years, I’d find myself at a loss for words whenever someone would mention suicide, so I’ve been there.
That’s why I’ve been trying to change suicide’s shameful stigma. For the last 16 years, I’ve been vocal, unafraid to talk about the very things people don’t want to talk about. In the beginning, I talked about my father as a way to process my grief. I saw it as a way to keep my father’s memory alive, but as the years went on, I began to realize that my talking about his suicide wasn’t just for me. Sure, it may have started out that way, but the more statistics I read and the more stories I heard, the more I learned how many people are affected by suicide. I began to feel a responsibility to share my story.
And, it looks like my story might actually be starting a conversation — or, at the very least, getting people to think about suicide in a different way. Today, my piece is among the most popular articles on The Fix! That, friends, makes me incredibly hopeful for a future with less suicides stigmas and more compassion and understanding. Are you with me??
You can read the full piece here and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to email me anytime at mellow1422@aol.com and let’s chat! And of course, feel free to share my essay on Facebook, Twitter or even your local refrigerator. If you share on Twitter, be sure to tag me @melissablake so we can connect! I can’t wait to hear from you! Love you all… xoxo
[Top photo via Unsplash]
Family Photos: On my father’s love of life and adventure
My Father’s Suicide: On the big week
My Essay on Harper’s Bazaar: “To Kate Spade’s Daughter…From Someone Who Has Been There”
Column Throwback Week #1: In which I have a heart-to-heart with my therapist
JulienHoward says
This is a great piece. I worked for many years seeing psychiatric patients in an emergency department setting. Many of my patients felt relief when I would ask them if they wanted to die, to kill themselves. It was giving permission to talk about suicide without any judgement. People are terrified to ask if someone is suicidal, for fear of possibly making them kill themselves. Also, many people are very good at hiding their pain, because they do not want to hurt their loved ones. Suicide needs to become an open conversation in our society. But, I fear that will not happen for a very long time.
La says
I am a 43 year old single mommy of two adult daughters, who happen to be brilliant and wise way beyond their years.
When I was growing up, suicide was such a taboo subject to me and my friends…I feel like we didn’t know anyone who had experienced anyone had to deal with it in anyway. However my daughters have been exposed to it firsthand. Several times. With classmates, or close friends, or siblings or close friends all through high school and through college. The more it happened, the less shocking it became for myself as a parent to hear, and the less shocking it became for them to tell me, especially my youngest daughter. She is now only 20 years old.
In fact she is the one who said something to me one day, and she is why I am leaving a comment here today.
We were driving in my car talking about her friend that had a sibling that had just committed suicide. And she was down about it, but not really upset or sad, or anything like that. So when she was telling me I had asked her how the parents were handling it and her friend was handling it. I also went on to say that I felt like suicide was such a selfish act because for the person who commits their pain is now over, but to the people who are still living, the pain still goes on. Now they have to mourn, and grieve and bury them and keep living with their void, and depending on what they believe, their never going to see them again. And no parent should bury a child, that’s not any parents plan, ever. Then I just shook my head and they thought of having to bury one of my daughters…
So, my youngest, just says,”well mommy, you know I’m way atheist but the god I would believe in wouldn’t make me suffer if I closed my eyes. People forget the brain is an organ too. The stomach gets sick, the heart gets sick, the lungs get sick, right?”
I said, “yes.”
She said,”well, your brain isn’t any different. It isn’t any better or immune to anything just because it’s in your head. It’s human flesh just like the rest of us. And it can get sick too. It’s probably the least part of our body that we know about, the part we use the least amount of, and the part we are the quickest to dismiss that there might be a pro. It gets sick too. That’s what happened here. The brain was sick, and he didn’t want to be sick anymore. The god I would know, would know that too, and wouldn’t be mad at him, or anyone for that”
I looked at my baby, she kind of shrugged and looked at me, I sort of smiled and told her, “I love you so much Boogie.”
She is so right. We ALL need to remember what she said.
The brain gets sick sometimes too, and it needs help when it does.
Not shame
Not more pain
Help
cm writes says
I did try to commit suicide years ago, and through that, I learned a great deal on the subject. I’ve written a story about my own attempt and why. I wrote about the apologies that I owed to so many people. When someone is in that frame of mind, they don’t think of themselves as being selfish. That thought does not even cross their minds; what they are trying to accomplish is to stop the pain within themselves. The fact is they don’t want to die, it’s the pain that is too unbearable to go on living and you believe that you are the only one suffering the same degree of pain that you feel. It is a sad thing and I did not know that help could come from someone before action is taken. I am so glad that I didn’t die.