Understanding, Preventing, and Overcoming Suicide

9 min readMay 11, 2023

Trigger Warning: Suicide, Sexual Assault, Self-Harm*

Let’s talk about Suicide Prevenetion.

If you watch or read the news, you’ve probably noticed that in the last few years, especially since the start of the pandemic, suicide cases have been on the rise yet again.

Although this is a very hard post to make, this is a very necessary one. While this topic makes many people uncomfortable, we have to start breaking down the stigma around mental health and suicide. Lives depend on it.

In 2020 suicide was:

The 2nd leading cause of death in youth aged 10–14
The 3rd leading cause of death in youth aged 15–24
The 2nd leading cause of death in adults aged 25–34
The 4th leading cause of death in adults aged 35–44

These statistics are gut wrenching… and as someone who attempted to end their life in more than one of these age brackets, it is so hard to see these numbers rising.

But as difficult as it is, we have to understand how we got here.

The Mental Health Stigma

You’ve probably heard a lot of people talk about the stigma around mental health and suicide. Maybe you’ve never experienced it. Maybe you don’t think it truly exists. Maybe you have seen it happen it first hand. Regardless of your personal experience with it, I can personally attest to the fact it is alive and well.

Understanding how the stigma around mental health materializes, what it looks like, and how it affects people could quite literally help you save someone’s life. It is also important to understand that whether or not you have malicious intentions, you may unknowingly participate in stigmatizing someone’s mental health.

Important considerations:

Many illnesses, disorders, and disabilities are “invisible illnesses,” which means that the individuals’ struggles may not appear blatant or obvious on first glance.
Many individuals invisible illnesses are high functioning, which can cause others to question the validity of their struggles.
Society has a general acceptance, and almost encouragement, of negative language around mental health issues. This includes negative media portrayal of individuals with psychological disorders, the casual use of degrading phrases or terminology, and making dehumanizing comparisons that downplay the seriousness of an illness.

What all of these things have done over time is create a general lack of empathy for others, as well as a discomfort with talking about our feelings out of fear of being judged. While I can’t speak for other people, what I can say is that at some of the darkest points in my life, this is exactly how I felt. I didn’t want to be judged. I didn’t want to be a burden on others. And at many times, I didn’t even want to say my thoughts or feelings out loud because it was just too painful.

So how do we stop the stigma?

We talk about it. We make it “normal” for ourselves to express our feelings, and we create a comfortable space for our friends and family to do the same without judgement. Reach out to people in your life who you think may be struggling. Find a moment to check in, and let people know that you are a safe person to talk to when they are ready.

The less the stigma exists, the less people will feel that their only option is bottling their feelings, suffering in silence, or ending their own lives. It costs $0 to be kind and supportive, and for some people, that may just be enough to change their minds.

Despite me believing that last sentence to be true, I have to follow that up with a very important disclaimer. Sometimes kindness, love, and support isn’t enough to change someone’s mind.

So let’s talk about that.

The Aftermath of Suicide

The aftermath of suicide feels like a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. It is a tidal wave of grief that drags you down to an unfathomable depth. Nothing could have ever prepared me for how painful it is to lose someone you love to suicide. Not even my own suicidal thoughts or tendencies.

If you know me personally, or read my introduction post, you probably are aware of my relationship with suicide. And that relationship is a tough one. I first experienced thoughts of suicide when I was about 10, and that same year began my journey with self harm, and ultimately my first of several attempts. Suicidal thoughts became a very “normal” part of my day to day, and that was incredibly dangerous. Because of how used to these feelings I was at a young age, it led to a lot of reckless behavior. I wasn’t afraid to die, and I wasn’t afraid to be the one to initiate it.

Where my relationship with suicide started to change was in high school. I had a friend that I became very close with on an intimate and personal level, because she felt a lot of the same things I did. Though it was not something that teenagers should have had to do, we talked each other off a ledge a few times, and even came to a friend-to-friend pact that if one of us felt suicidal, we would talk about it. And we did. Every time. Until one day, we didn’t.

On November 19th, 2009, she was vibrant, happy, and full of life at school. That same night, she ended her life.

The aftermath of her loss was devastating. I found out about her suicide in my second period class by overhearing classmates laughing about it. The lack of empathy in the days, weeks, and months that followed her death absolutely derailed my life. To many people she was a joke, a statistic, and nothing more than a now-empty-seat in a classroom. To me, she was a beautiful, special person, and I would have done anything to help her. And truthfully, I tried.

This brings us to the very painful reality of suicide… Which is that sometimes, your best efforts to help someone isn’t enough.

Individual Choice

Regardless of how hard we try to save someone, it is important to realize that suicide is an individual’s choice. And as much as people try to say it is selfish or cowardly, it is truthfully a hard choice to make.

As someone who has been on both sides of suicide, I have an intimate understanding of what that choice feels like. Though the loss of my friend completely derailed my life for years to come, I understood why she did it. I had been there, too. She was a sexual assault victim. She was brutally bullied. She had people encourage her to end her life. And at the core of it all, I know in her 15 short years of life, she suffered deeply. Though I am thankful to remember that last day as vibrant, happy, and full of life, I know looking back that she had accepted, and was at peace, with the fact that her pain was going to end.

The Stages of Grief

It is hard to put our personal feelings aside when it comes to death. We never want to lose someone we love, even when we know someone is suffering. I have lost friends in accidents, suicides, murders, overdoses, health issues, and everything in between. With that being said, I think this concept exists strongest in post-suicide grief.

If you are unfamiliar with the 5 stages of grief, here they are:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

When overcoming suicide loss, I have found that the stages move at different paces than other losses I have experienced. Denial and anger are particularly difficult to move through.

Suicides are generally sudden and unexpected, and when we factor in the invisible illness aspect, this creates a large disconnect between our own emotions, and understanding why an individual chose to end their life. Though I reached a level of acceptance relatively early on, I lived in my depression for almost 10 years. Understanding that you may transition between different stages of grief, or even back track at times, is extremely important.

Take What You Need, and Leave What You Don’t

If you have lost someone you love to suicide, here are some things I want you to know.

People who end their lives do so to end their own pain, not to inflict pain on others. In that moment, they are not thinking about the people who love them. They are thinking about finding relief to their suffering. Many times, they feel they are doing their loves ones a favor by no longer existing.
You cannot carry the personal burden or guilt of a suicide. Lack of closure is a horrible thing, but as much as we like to tell ourselves this, in most situations there is nothing you could have done differently to prevent it. I harbored guilt for years on how I could have saved my friend. It wasn’t until years into therapy that I realized she had her mind made up, and I didn’t have the power to override her personal choice.
Grief is not always rational. Small things will break you down, memories will flood your mind, and at times, you will feel like you are backtracking. I remember when the grass grew in around my friend’s plot, and I could no longer see the lines where they placed the grass over her casket. This was such a small thing, but it added time, space, and permanence. Give yourself patience and love while working through loss.
Your loved one is more than a statistic. They were a beautiful and special person. They deserve to have their story told and to be remembered for their light, and not for the darkness that took them.

If you are considering ending your life, here are some things I want you to know.

When your mind tells you that no one will miss you, it’s a lie. After almost 14 years that my friend has been gone, I still miss her everyday, and I know so many other people do as well.
Things will get better, and sometimes they are closer than you think. I know this sounds cliché, but it’s true. Life comes in waves, and there will be ebbs and flows, achievements and failures, and ups and downs. I found out shortly after my friend’s passing, that her mother was in the process of switching her to a music academy, which would have allowed her to get away from the bullying, and pursue her passion for music. It was a surprise that she never got to find out about. A surprise that maybe would have changed the outcome of her life, had she held on just a little longer.
You deserve to experience the beautiful things that life has to offer. Though sometimes it feels this way, you didn’t work this hard and overcome the things you did to only experience pain and suffering. If I would have been successful in any of my attempts, I would have never graduated high school, I would have never turned 21, met my siblings, gotten married, or had so many other amazing moments. I know the dark times can feel like the darkest, but you deserve to experience a happy life. When the happiness and good times come, I hope you are here to see it. You don’t have to miss those things.
There is no shame in asking for help, or seeking treatment. When I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, it felt like a death sentence. I know it gets tiring to do therapy, try countless medications, or sometimes just to exist, but there is a solution out there that can make a difference.

Regardless of if, or how suicide has impacted your life, I wish you strength and healing, for both yourself and others. As someone who has been both a victim and survivor of suicide, this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart.

Please take time to heal, and encourage the ones you love to do the same.

Please create a safe space for yourself and others to have raw, honest, discussions about your emotions and struggles.

Please actively participate in trying to break down the stigma around mental health and suicide.

Please remember, your life matters.