Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

720,000+ people across the globe lose their life to suicide anually as reported by the World Health Organization. This is not just a statistic; each number represents a life. They were a person with their own story, dreams, and struggles that cannot be seen from a number alone. Yet the topic is still met with silence, discomfort, and avoidance. This can create fear of being misunderstood and of being judged. Making it difficult for some to open up emotionally and leading them to navigate through the pain on their own. September is recognized as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month to help reduce the stigma surrounding the topic of mental illness and suicidal thoughts and to promote resources for those seeking aid. No matter the month, this subject should always be highlighted to keep promoting awareness.

Suicide should never be reduced to a performance or dismissed as attention-seeking. Suicidal thoughts are a serious sign of distress, and those experiencing them should be met with compassion and help. To further understand this struggle, I interviewed two students at Patriot High School who are in recovery. 

…recovery means not a narrow definition of ‘cure’ but rather a broader concept of a journey toward a meaningful life, an adaptation, an acceptance, and a focus on strengths despite limitations. David Goldbloom 

Disclaimer: This is their own partial experience. It may not represent everyone’s experience.

Student 1:

He had overheard a mother and son arguing at the swapmeet. He listened as the little boy told his mom “Mom, can I get a hug? I’ve had a bad day.”, the words rattled him with familiarity and sadness. He shut down immediately. Yet that moment lingered in the back of his mind throughout the day; its emotional weight followed him long after the encounter. That night he shut his bedroom door, he couldn’t allow himself to sit with this sadness. 

His experience reveals the reality of recovery; healing does not necessarily mean the sadness fades away in time. Instead, it is a complicated process, nonlinear process, and just as much as growth is possible, so are dips in recovery. 

Student 2:

She described carrying a persistent melancholy feeling since childhood. It lurked in moments she felt happy or cheerful. It dragged her down, and prevented her from living the way she truly wanted to live her life, and in achieving her dreams. When she reached out for help, she was met with misinterpretation and a lack of support. She lived in a loop of wanting to get better and returning to a depressive, hopeless, state again. 

Her experience illustrates how depression can haunt the recovery process, and the difficulties of learning to navigate through these complex emotions. Despite the complexities of mental health, recovery is still possible. By fostering an environment of empathy, understanding, and communication, the stigma surrounding mental health can be reduced and encourage those struggling to seek the support they deserve. 

Suicide Awareness talks can sometimes go in one ear and out the other; it’s easy to dismiss warning signs when we don’t feel like they’ll ever apply to us or the people we love. It’s hard to imagine something so incredibly drastic and heartbreaking happening within our lives, it feels as if the concept is almost intangible and so we become dismissive and don’t listen to the cause entirely. 

Social media decreases our sensitivity to mental health awareness as well, it waters down important terms and makes mental health crises the punch line. Too often have we heard people say they feel depressed over not getting their morning energy drink, say they had a panic attack because they stuttered whilst ordering their meal, or say they’ll end their lives over a test they didn’t properly study for. 

This kind of language is harmful not only to people struggling, but it hurts people’s perspective on those who are genuinely dealing with mental health.

Constantly attributing day-to-day inconveniences to real disorders millions of people are battling against affects a person’s outlook on themselves and others. It can make people feel like every setback is the end of the world. It'll ruin a person’s confidence if they treat every issue as something that they can’t handle. Even if it’s meant to be lighthearted, joking that you’ll end yourself over something trivial can eventually impact a person’s confidence in problem-solving. Moreover, it desensitizes other people from real mental health disorders which may deter people from getting professional help. It creates a mindset in which one begins to tell themselves, “if everyone is claiming to have these different disorders and symptoms, surely what I’m going through is normal, and doesn’t need to be looked at.” This way of thinking is extremely dangerous for any individual to have, it can seriously postpone a person from receiving professional help, sometimes until it’s too late. It’s critical that we evaluate the language we’re using, why we’re using it, and how it may affect others.

So what’s the difference? How do we know when certain language is appropriate to use and when it isn’t? One way to understand how to be mindful when it comes to heavily sensitive topics is to actually understand and look into the terms we’re talking about. 

For example, we often see anxiety and nervousness being used interchangeably because they have similar symptoms. However, they actually impact people in two distinct psychological ways. 

Nervousness is a short, temporary-lived feeling in reaction to an event. 

It is triggered by a distinct cause and typically dissipates once the event has been taken care of. The feelings nervousness itself creates often overlaps with the sensation anxiety creates: both have intense feelings of stress, panic, worry. They can both trigger a fast-beating heartbeat, a sick sensation in the stomach, and a difficulty to think. 

Anxiety strays away from nervousness and differs because anxiety is not short-lived.

Anxiety is a future-oriented emotion characterized by apprehension, tension, and unease caused by the anticipation of a potential danger, catastrophe, or misfortune 

It sticks to a person for days and won’t disappear even after a trigger is gone. In fact, anxiety can often occur without a trigger: it may just show up one day without reason, last for weeks, and put a person in constant fight-or-flight mode with no apparent solution. 

Nervousness keeps a person at alert because of some sort of trigger, while anxiety can completely disrupt a person’s way of living and make it extremely difficult for day-to-day functioning. It may affect a person’s ability to eat, maintain their living space, take care of their personal hygiene, show up for their friends and family, and at times not function as a student or in social settings.

Although September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, the coverage and discussion of this topic should not be limited to just 30 days of the year. People can experience mental illness and suicidal thoughts throughout the year, and the stigma can remain long after awareness campaigns end. The check ins on loved ones or others should not depend on whether they appear to be struggling. These expressions should stay consistent to perpetuate a safe space for those experiencing mental health troubles. 

Suicidal thoughts and mental illness should not be only labeled as attention-seeking. A person’s emotional concerns and distress should be approached seriously, and in an empathetic manner. Mental health awareness goes beyond recognizing the problem, it also involves how we treat each other. By treating others with understanding, a community where seeking help is met with compassion rather than shame can be built. No one should have to face their struggles feeling that their pain is insignificant or that their future is beyond reach. 

Resource: The 988 Suicide and Crisis hotline is always available.

It provides a free conversation on the phone or through text with a trained counselor who can navigate through the emotional distress and allows for those struggling to be heard.