In a week when two celebrities, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, died by suicide within days of each other, so did hundreds of other people in the U.S. One of them was named Flinn, a classmate of mine in high school.
On Flinn’s public Facebook page, an outpouring of sympathetic posts, one after the other, creates a trail of digital tears. In a long stream of posts expressing their heartbreak, people lament the pain and suffering that Flinn endured.
Nobody uses the word “suicide” or “killed himself.” Nobody says he intentionally ended his life. But he did die by suicide.
Stigma and Suicide
It’s heartbreaking – not only Flinn’s death, but also the conversation around it. There is so much stigma, fear, and pain attached to suicide that many people don’t even say the word.
I understand that families have their reasons for not disclosing when a loved one dies by suicide, and I would never pressure someone to do so. And I don’t fault others who avoid naming suicide. Instead I fault society and social conditioning for teaching us to treat suicide as unspeakable.
If we can’t acknowledge suicide when a person has died, then how can the living expect to talk openly with friends and family about their urges to end their life? It’s awfully hard to help suicidal people – and for them to ask for help – if we treat suicide as if it is a dirty word.
Avoiding Asking about Suicide
Many people are too scared to talk directly about suicide – even some therapists. I teach a class on suicide risk assessment and intervention to aspiring social workers at the University of Denver. On the first day of class, I ask them to write down one or two questions they would ask someone to determine if the person is thinking of suicide.
Some come right out with it and ask: “Are you thinking of suicide?” “Do you think of killing yourself?”
Others ask, “How has your sleep been lately?” “Are you depressed?” “What hopes do you have for the future?” Those questions will help you learn if someone’s sleeping poorly, depressed, or hopeless – not if someone’s thinking of suicide. Perhaps the conversation will lead there. Perhaps not.
Some people ask “Do you think of hurting yourself?” when they really mean, “Do you think of suicide?” “Hurt yourself” is a euphemism that some people use to avoid naming suicide. Yet there are people who intentionally hurt themselves without wanting to die. There are also people who desperately want to die and view suicide not as a means to hurt oneself, but to stop hurting. So the person’s answer to “Do you want to hurt yourself?” might not mean what you think it does. Using euphemisms for suicide also reinforces the message that suicide is unspeakable.
Fears of Asking about Suicidal Thoughts
Why don’t people ask directly about suicide? They may fear that talking directly about suicide gives others the idea (it doesn’t). Or they might consider it impolitic to name suicide, because of the stigma attached to it. Or they might be afraid of saying the wrong thing, or of angering the person, or of being unable to help, or of feeling overwhelmed by their own painful emotions.
These are all legitimate concerns. It’s scary to ask someone about suicidal thoughts. But avoiding the topic does not make the problem go away. It drives it underground, where a suicidal person may feel even more alone in the darkness.
Ways to Help Suicidal People
To truly foster open, constructive conversations about suicide — to create an environment where people can ask for help from loved ones and professionals — more people should try to name it. Only then can more suicidal people feel welcome to reveal their thoughts.
Only if we name suicide can we reach out to those we worry about and ask, “Are you thinking of suicide?” And then we can truly listen and join with the suicidal person.
There are specific techniques for asking a person about suicidal thoughts that can lessen the potential for stigma, shame, and discomfort. One way is to convey that the person is not weird or wrong to have suicidal thoughts: “Sometimes people who feel as crappy as you do have thoughts of suicide. Do you?”
Talking about Suicide
Once potential helpers can talk openly about suicide, it opens the door to potentially life-saving conversations. If you’re wondering how to respond to a suicidal person, check out my post “10 Things to Say to a Suicidal Person.” I also have a post, “10 Things Not to Say to a Suicidal Person.” Those are my own ideas, and if you have time to read the comments, you’ll see many other ideas, too.
I don’t know if these conversations occurred with my old classmate Flinn, or if they would have helped him. I remember him as someone who loved to surf in the feeble waves of Galveston and play hacky sack in between classes, but it’s been 30 years since I last saw him.
What I do know is that Flinn died in a way that many people actively avoid naming. This silence about suicide can be deafening, making it exquisitely hard to hear people who desperately need to be heard.
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Copyright 2018 by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW. Written for SpeakingOfSuicide.. All Rights Reserved. Except where noted, photos purchased from Fotolia.com.
REVISED: October 5, 2024
i want to die
Hi Todd. I hope you are still hanging in. I am in Oregon. My name is Elizabeth.
Hi, I am not sure why but I am still here
Just wanted to give huge props to this article, it was really great to read about different ways to bring up this topics and help others close us. 🙂
Update on my mom: a week after she tested positive for covid, I finally got to talk to her and she sounds like shes doing great! I slept and ate so much better after, not worrying she would die at christmas and leave me so much worse than i could handle. So, I’m not so panicked now. Thanks.
Hey, I’m going to throw something out here to all of us who know exactly how the system has failed us.
What I hear that is common to all of us is that in spite of the failed system, we are still here. I dont hear any of you saying ” I’ve packed my bags and am leaving today”.
Is anyone open to a zoom meeting of like ninded people to support our own needs?
I mean a lot of know what we need, we just can’t find the support for it. We dont have to pretend things are rosy if we just seek help.
I know for me SUPPORT is key, and yest I dont know how to find anyone who gets it.
If you are interested you can post it here or email me at NADAZONIE@GMAIL.COM
And type: ‘yes, im in’ in the subject line.
I’m more than willing to set something up.
Pattie, I like this idea. And I’d join, so long as I can leave video off. At least I can listen, maybe ask questions. Tonight, a few days before yet another holiday that makes me feel horrible, my whole family dead decades now, I’m beside myself… But I won’t dare call any hotline for reasons you and others have already mentioned. They’re a joke. Last hotline I called I was told to get a cat before the bored-sounding responder rushed me off the phone.
Anyway, yes, I’d like to participate in a community meeting among those of us the mental health system has failed and who have few or no other resources. If you’re open to the idea, I can propose a few alternative modes of audio/visual conferencing, as some people may use Zoom for school or work–and Zoom admits it’s no longer encrypted (so no longer private).
Anon, Yes Please!
I’m really pretty new to the whole zoom thing, and I too do NOT like the video part on. So, any suggestions or assistance would be great.
I dont know if I put this in my last comment, but my 94 yo mom tested positive for covid last Friday in a long term demetia care home in another state, and I haven’t been able to talk to her, so yeah, good timing. Thank you.
Pattie, I’ll email you at the address you left (and this blog’s owner was kind enough to publish) in your opening comment. Maybe we can figure out a way to safeguard people’s privacy while still allowing us to get together and brainstorm.
Very sorry to hear about your mom. I wish I could offer some relief for you both. Wishing you both the best.
If suicide is “wrong” because human life is precious, then why do we let so many people die of poverty? Or how about communities that for decades health scientists have told us are dying due to systemic problems (related to poverty and bigotry) we COULD fix but choose to allow to persist–like how in the US we’re seeing that the poor and many minorities are getting much sicker and dying at alarmingly high rates relative to the rest of us? If suicide is “wrong” because a human life could be saved, why aren’t we applying the same moral reasoning to the many lives we can save from death due to poverty?
Many of our politicians and average citizens actively vote AGAINST policies proposed to help the most desperately vulnerable–even when studies show helping them would save the community money (several US housing first initiatives as just one example). I don’t think we actually are against suicide. We SAY we are because (1) some of us earn our money in the anti-suicide industry & (2) others of us want to feel good about ourselves. Peter Singer says you can judge the true ethical values of a culture based on how it spends its money. We have lots of money for police departments’ new toys, for the military, to bail out big banks (Chase Banks, one of US’ biggest, was just found out illegally manipulating the precious metals market…), for corporate lobbyists to buy politicians’ votes. But poor, struggling, high-risk “essential workers” (euphemism)? “Back to work!”
The hypocrisy of a great deal of anti-suicide is appalling.
Absolutely! Well said.
EK,
Those are excellent points. There are huge social problems in our midst that need attention – poverty, racism, violence, unemployment, homelessness, unequal access to medical care, to name just a few. If we solved (or, at least, lessened) these social problems, there would be fewer suicides. I don’t think the work of suicide prevention contradicts those aims. That is, where is the hypocrisy?
Helping a suicidal individual to stay alive while also advocating for societal level change are not mutually exclusive. I don’t know anyone in suicide prevention who would argue that solving social problems isn’t needed, too. You can learn more by looking up “upstream” suicide prevention, or by looking at various works on suicide as a social justice issue, such as the book Suicide and Social Justice: New Perspectives on the Politics of Suicide and Suicide Prevention.
Thank you for sharing here. You’ve added a valuable point to the conversation, and that is that suicide prevention is not only an individual issue; it’s a societal issue, as well.
Stacy, the hypocrisy lies in the dichotomy between how we treat suicidal individuals versus the culture dramatic biomedical evidence shows increases suicide risk. To “save” the life of a suicidal person, we’ll inflict grave violence on them, such as law enforcement’s physical assault and even killing of cognitively impaired victims in the US whom law enforcement is called to help. Or the involuntary commitment and non-consensual treatment of individuals under the justification that saving a life is worth the use of force. We must save a life at all costs, we say. Nonetheless, we are perfectly willing to allow people to die from neglect and deprivation even when we have more than enough resources to prevent both.
If we applied the same save-a-life-at-all-costs zeal to supporting those who’re suicidal due to insidious poverty–who the most recent reports disclose are growing internationally, including here in the US–then we would also use force to redistribute life-saving resources to those who are dying without them. It’s hypocritical that we are able to force an individual into treatment to save their life, but we are not able to force politicians, courts, law enforcement, and corporate moguls to abandon policies our health scientists tell us are suicide precipitants.
It’s noteworthy, too, that a growing body of suicide and mental health researchers in the US and abroad are re-visiting the causation of suicide–highlighting that sustained trauma and deprivation (such as seen in the full-time employed who are nonetheless homeless, or the plight of low-wage essential workers who have no survival alternative but to continue to place themselves and their families at great risk every day for the benefit of the rest of us and corporate stakeholders) are significant mental stressors related to suicidal ideation. But the use of force is absent in drastically decreasing these societal stressors. Because too many of us benefit from them. That’s another hypocrisy I’m calling out.
With all due respect, I don’t accept the general argument that forced treatment is necessarily “help.” Especially when these “helped” individuals must eventually be released back into the larger community where they’ll face many of the same factors that induced their suicidality—often poorer and more traumatized than before. We force treatment on individuals because we can control them and this makes us feel better about ourselves. Because we think we have done something about the problem. Corporations and governments, both which create policies that precipitate many suicides, we cannot (or choose not to) control, regardless what would be compassionate or moral.
If human life were precious, then every single human being would share in our plenteous survival resources. The real world doesn’t treat people as precious. It treats us differently based on our wealth and other characteristics we have no control over. And then it labels, maligns, and even harms people for succumbing to society’s injustices. We force changes on weak individuals, but we don’t dare to force changes on the powerful who remain free to continue making society more harmful to the vulnerable. That is the hypocrisy.
EK,
Thanks for explaining. I think I misunderstood your initial comment. I thought you were saying people in suicide prevention are hypocritical, but really it appears you’re saying that society itself is hypocritical for valuing suicide prevention but not taking other steps to reduce suffering and make life worth living for everybody. On those points, I agree. It galls me to see such hypocrisy on multiple levels, well beyond suicide prevention, too. As a society, we need to do more than save lives. We need to make life worth living, too.
oh, I gotta add here something that is really easy to reveal the hypocrisy.
I live in a community now where I see and feel the OPPRESSION all around me in everything my community does.
Its a result of GROUP 1:POWER, and GROUP2:POWERLESS.
GROUP1 are the VOICES, the only ones who are ever included, connected, and acting together to resolve problems and reap the benefits in society.
GROUP2 are the VOICELESS, the only ones who are always EXCLUDED, disconnected, and unable to act together to resolve problems and reap the benefits in society.
Its what the disability community means by:
NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US”
Its why consumer- driven practices are effective and cost efficient, and don’t claim to be the answer to everything.
Our voices have been co-opted by the people who speak FOR US, the ones who “know better”, the experts, the professionals, who dont let us speak for ourselves.
Its not about their intention to be be hpocrytical, its the RESULT of what they do that matters.
We would tell you that — if only we had a VOICE.