Suicide Prevention Week
[Trigger Warning: Suicide]
In September of 2009 my life turned upside down when my younger brother GJ died of suicide. Being a survivor of suicide loss is a unique kind of grief, one that took me many years to fully come to terms with, heal from, and eventually find the courage to speak about publicly. 💗
Since then, I've made it my mission to live a full life, and to do everything I can to inspire others to do the same. Like so many other survivors of suicide loss, I've wondered again and again
"Where would my brother be now if he had gotten the help he needed before it was too late?"
And also, "What can I do so that no one has to endure this kind of loss and pain ever again?"
Suicide Prevention Week was last week 5-11 September. This is an opportunity for all of us to do our part to reduce mental health stigma by:
raising awareness about suicide, and
having mental health conversations openly and without shame.
Too often, the discomfort of talking about suicide renders us silent, leading those who are suffering to believe they are suffering alone.
We give others courage to seek help when we bring things out of the darkness into the light. ✨
To those who are suffering silently, my hope is that you would find reasons to keep going.
Please know this: depression is a liar - it makes you think the hard days will never go away but they do.
And on the other side of those hard days are unimaginable joys and delights.
Thoughts on suicide prevention…
Preventing suicide STARTS with kindness so that people know they matter.
It starts with mental health education in schools, increased accessibility to therapy (including adequate compensation for mental health professionals from insurance companies), and reducing mental health stigma.
Adequate suicide prevention includes anti-bullying measures, programs for financial assistance, and debt reductionprograms (especially medical debt.)
Preventing suicide includes addressing toxic masculinity and other systems that tell people they shouldn’t need help. It should also include programs to support the training and education for more therapists, especially people of color.
Everything that helps people feel seen and heard, that shows them their lives have meaning and purpose, that helps them know there is help available for their problems and tells them that their well-being is a priority is a vital part of the solution toward preventing suicide.
Simply posting a suicide prevention hotline number is like using a fire extinguisher for a fire.
It’s a last-ditch effort. We need to spend more time focusing on the circumstances that lead to the fire in the first place. We need to ask, "How did we get here?" instead of waiting until it's too late to help someone.
My hope is that you'd not just feel seen and heard, but also be a vessel for helping others feel seen and heard.