I Think About Suicide A Lot

Suicide prevention and the silencing of stigma

Note: This article discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide or is in crisis, please seek help by calling the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or texting the Crisis Text Line at 741741 (US). For crisis support outside the US, find your local helpline through the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

AI-generated image created in Picsart and edited by the author.

To clarify, I don’t want to kill myself.

I think about suicide a lot as a phenomenon and how tragically misunderstood it is.

I think about how the topic of suicide is swept under the rug of societal conversation because of stigma.

And I think about how relegating this issue to the taboo abyss causes irreparable damage.

Lives are taken and loved ones are lost.

People are killing themselves and we’re too uncomfortable to have conversations about it.

I’m a suicide attempt survivor with 30 years of experience with suicidal thinking so I know this topic well.

I’ve been a suicide awareness advocate for many years so I feel comfortable with the subject.

But I know this isn’t the norm.