Untold thousands, maybe even millions, of people embraced Amy Bleuel’s symbol of passionate resistance against suicide: a simple semicolon. Tattoos, jewelry, and art feature the period floating above a comma, not for punctuation, but for an expression of hope.
That delicate punctuation mark, Amy would tell people, meant that the writer still had more to say. And the same is true for suicidal people: “Your story isn’t over.”
Yet Amy’s story ended last week, at the age of 31. She died by suicide. My heart breaks for her and her loved ones. It also breaks for the many strangers whose lives she touched.
Once, she wrote in the mission statement for her organization Project Semicolon, “The vision is that people see the value in their story…The vision is that suicide is no longer an option to be considered…The vision is hope, and hope is alive….”
How do we reconcile those words when the writer not only considered suicide, but died by it?
Amy’s message was made all the more powerful by what she had overcome. Her father died by suicide when she was 18. It was only one of many traumas that she faced in her life, including physical and sexual abuse as a child, and multiple rapes in college. She had attempted suicide five times.
Still, she had said, “The vision is that suicide is no longer an option to be considered…The vision is hope, and hope is alive….”
The vision. Tragically, it was only a vision, a hope, a longing for her – as it is for so many others. Not a reality.
What Now?
I am afraid. I worry that, for some, Amy’s suicide will diminish the power of her message, that the legions who believed in her will now feel deflated, defeated, and perhaps even more suicidal.
Several years ago, a psychotherapist, Bob Bergeron, wrote a book titled, The Right Side of 40: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond. It was a feel-good book, extolling the possibilities for happiness and growth even after the vibrancy of youth has faded.
Shortly before the book was supposed to go on sale, the author killed himself. He wrote a suicide note on the book’s title page. “It’s a lie …” he wrote, with an arrow pointing to the name of the book.
The book was never published. I imagine the publisher pulled it because the author lost credibility. If someone writes a guide to happiness and then dies by suicide, can the guide be trusted?
This question torments me. Does Amy Bleuel’s death cancel out the wisdom, solace, and inspiration that she imparted to so many?
The answer is NO.
Life is not all-or-nothing. Amy’s suicide does not cancel out all the inspirational and true things she said against suicide. Her death does not erase her tremendous wisdom. It does not taint the countless lives she touched.
If anything, her death makes her work all the more important. It shows the power of suicide – and the need to fight it. Nobody is immune, not even people who know so well that their story isn’t over.
If you’re suicidal, get help. Reach out. Talk to others. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Or check out the Resources page to learn of many other places where you can get help by phone, email, text, or online chat.
That’s the real message. Don’t be alone with your suicidal thoughts. Dese’Rae Lynn Stage, who is active in suicide prevention and created the website Live Through This, puts it especially well in her Facebook post about Amy. She writes:
“We lost a powerful advocate in Amy, and I know the rest of us who do this work are really feeling that loss today. If you’re one of these people, please don’t lose sight of yourself in the work. We need you—and we need you thriving, not just surviving—so that when you hold your breath and you dive deep, you pull two people ashore: yourself and the person you worked so hard to save. And then you send up a flare to let the rescue boat know where you are, and you wait and you rest and you breathe.”
The takeaway, then, is that Amy’s death brings even more meaning to her work, not less. It shows all the more that people need to fight hopelessness and despair, that people need to take care of themselves and each other, so that fewer people finish their story prematurely.
The message remains true, the message remains important, even though suicide took the messenger.
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Copyright 2017 Stacey Freedenthal. Written for Speaking of Suicide. All Rights Reserved.
I attempted suicide in November last year. I’m in Australia and have become involved with Suicide Prevention Australia but only by email and surveys. I read about Amy last week and I understand what happened to her, her own self experience. I don’t know what will happen to me but I don’t think my ‘involvement’ is real in suicide prevention. I don’t have Amy’s semi-colon tattoo, and yet I still don’t have a tattoo about my brain aneurysm or my stroke 3 years ago. My life is different. So is everyone elses. So what is going on for me? I live alone, I can’t work, I feel dead while I’m alive. Is that what I do to die? I need someone to talk to.
You are not alone. Contact your local health care. You have to talk to somebody. You are as amazing person. Call somebody now 🙂
Louisa,
The Resources page contains a lot of places where you can talk to someone by phone, email, text, or online chat. I realize you’re in Australia, so many of the places aren’t accessible to you, but there are some (such as the Samaritans’ email and the international listings of hotlines). Also listed on that page is the Online Suicide Wiki, which has a long list of places you can get help online. I hope you will check them out.
I suffer from chronic depression . There are many days I sit and wonder why am I still doing this. My faith says it’s wrong. What would it do to my son? Still some days are so bad I tend to not care as much. Dr changes meds and you feel dumb inside or you lay and cry or am angry at the world. I understand why they would do it. The pain would be gone.
David,
I’m sorry you’re suffering. I hope you will look at the Resources page on this site for places where you can talk with someone (for free) by phone, email, text, or online chat. There is hope for feeling better, even if it doesn’t seem that way now.
As a person who has attempted suicide many of times one just being March 18 2017 I’ve always struggled with suicidal thoughts to me there is a difference between suicidal thoughts and acting on them. Just because I have suicidal thoughts does not mean that I am going to act on them. We do not have enough resources for mental health. I live in a state were A LOT of mental health resources are being cut.
Multiple suicide attempts,
These are all good points. There are a lot of different degrees of intensity to suicidal thoughts and behaviors. And it’s tragic how hard it is for people in many places to get help with mental health problems.
If you want to talk with someone by phone, email, text, or online chat, the Resources page lists a lot of places where you can do so.
Good luck to you, and thanks for sharing.
This article is a decent “closure” to Amy’s life. Her death is a significant loss but it doesn’t negate what she did at all.
I’m a perfectionist. I tried suicide three times. After the third time I decided I wasn’t any good at it or I would have succeeded. I’m not THAT big of a failure. I lived through a subsequent sexual assault by a cop, PTSD, the torture and
death of my husband by pharmaceutical malpractice. But I never tried suicide again because I’d tried it several times and, obviously, I wasn’t any good at it. Maybe I was not meant to succeed. In the bad times I tend to live in benign fury and revenge.
one time my husband told me: Don’t kill yourself. You’ll just be giving “them” what they want. When I’m broken, I remember what he said. My fury gets me through. I’ll leave this life kicking and screaming. I will never give suicide what it wants.
Allistair,
What a beautiful, inspiring response to the traumas that life has handed you. Talk about resilience! I love your fighting spirit, and I suspect that it will resonate with many readers who especially need to witness that spirit right now.
Thank you for sharing!! And good luck to you.
Sorry for hiding behind a prominent lady, but I don’t dare to use my name; yet write I must, or I may harm myself, I need to type this to distance me from my dark side, to have a critical look at it;
Amy’s suicide certainly does not devalue project “;” her story, so dry and factual on Wikipedia, is heartbreaking, and it made me reconsider my ‘problems’ in the light of hers, and get going, resume doing things, and rather think of making this world a better place than leaving it;
I guess I still can fail: my efforts may be misguided, my emotional unhappiness may come back with a vengeance, and I may snap; but not today; and there of course are other reasons keeping me alive (kids, parents, sun, grass, people, books, music, Pilates, shoes, bicycles, watches …);
However, a certain romantic interest remains quite a bit of a problem; it is not her fault, each of us is just a person he/she is, with not much willingness to adapt, I’m afraid; yet it is me acting way too much like a ‘Young Werther’ / nauseating adolescent; and something is profoundly wrong in this, unsaid and withheld things, and at times I have a notion that nothing will come of it, and that can be excruciating;
– should I sever all contacts?? I have no heart to do that; so I am really lost in darkness at times.
“Doctor,”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings, which are at once inspirational and also frightening. I hope you will not stay alone with your experience. Isolation and severance only do harm.
If you’re not already in therapy or talking with friends and family about what you’ve written here, please consider reading out by phone, text, email, or online chat to any of the places listed here.
Your life sounds full despite your longings, so I hope you will remember the light outside the darkness.