Where is It OK to Speak of Suicide?

I was mid-sentence when someone slid a sheet of paper across the table to my friend Sam.

“This is for you,” a female-sounding voice said to Sam, and the messenger slipped away without my ever seeing her.

We were lunching at a popular diner in Denver. I was intrigued: What was on that piece of paper?

Sam happened to be wearing a T shirt that could be construed as anti-Trump. Perhaps the person had dropped a note expressing solidarity. But the longer Sam read, the more their face tightened.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

With a grim expression, Sam passed the paper to me.

Speaking of Suicide Between Friends

I should mention that Sam had been telling me about their son’s suicidal crisis last year.

Like me, Sam’s a social worker who’s done a lot of suicide risk assessments, safety planning, and counseling with people in crisis. Sam said those experiences made it easier to have a calm, empathetic conversation with their son about his wanting to die. In contrast, many parents panic or resort to toxic positivity.

Our restaurant booth was tiny. There was barely enough room for one person on each side of the postage-stamp table. A thin, wooden partition separated us from the booth next to ours.

Evidently, the person had overheard us.

Hey there,

From one clinician to another I truly empathize with your situation and I’m asking you to stop talking about these things in public. Not only are you divulging your own trauma to everyone in here that cannot consent to hearing it, the details of your own involvement in your child’s mental health crisis are unethical. Please speak about these things in private like our code of conduct dictates.

 Sincerely,

Another clinician who now knows way too much

Is It Wrong to Talk about Suicide in Public?

For the record, there is no code of conduct that prohibits social workers or other mental health professionals from discussing their own child’s suicidal crisis with others.

If the social worker discusses a client in a crowded restaurant, that’s a different story – of course. Professionally, we are ethically and legally bound to keep what our clients tell us confidential, with very specific exceptions. Personally, mental health professionals are entitled to talk about their own lives, just like everyone else.

There’s also nothing in social workers’ Code of Ethics that forbids speaking about suicide or other mental health challenges in a public place. Or, for that matter, that forbids using well-practiced active listening skills with your child.

“It’s stigma,” I told worry-stricken Sam. “If you’d been talking about your diabetic child becoming dangerously hypoglycemic, would they have left you this note?”

I seriously doubt it.

Maybe the letter-writer assumed Sam’s son would be embarrassed or ashamed if someone he knew recognized Sam. That kind of automatic assumption is rooted in stigma, too.

Not everyone finds a suicidal past embarrassing or shameful. Our son, for example, also went through suicidal crises as an adolescent. He also attempted suicide. And he doesn’t buy into the stigma.

In anticipation of writing this post, I asked his permission to mention his history here. He said yes.

“Thanks for giving the okay,” I texted. “May I ask you something? I’m wondering why it’s OK with you?”

Our son is 25 now. He texted back, “My adolescence was spent on the internet in some shape or form. That’s how we communicated with each other. The internet is a very open place, and in turn it’s made my generation very open.”

We Want People to Speak of Mental Health Challenges More Openly

I know, I’m fretting about just one person’s scolding note in a diner. But I also know that many others probably agree with the anonymous scolder’s sentiment, “Please speak about these things in private.”

Suicide is so stigmatized, so taboo, that it’s often spoken of only in hushed tones, if it’s spoken of at all. Many people with suicidal thoughts hide their predicament as a result.

That’s why so many suicide prevention messages try to convey that, really, it is OK to talk about suicide. Not only OK, but also potentially life-saving:

“It’s time to stop whispering about suicide. We are losing too many to silence,” the Samaritans explain.

“Talk saves lives,” the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says.

“Break the silence,” AllOne Health advises.

“Start a conversation” the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill urges.

I agree with all those statements. We need to make it okay to talk with friends about suicide and suicidal thoughts wherever they want, not restrict those conversations to private rooms with locked doors and soundproofed walls.

But …

At the same time, all of this has left me wondering if I’m the best person to assess when a conversation about suicide is too sensitive for public spaces.

I mean, I run a website called Speaking of Suicide. I’ve written books, conducted professional trainings, taught courses at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work on helping people at risk for suicide, and shared publicly about my own suicidality in my 20s.

It’s possible I’ve become unusually desensitized to talking about suicide. Maybe I’m even naïve about the enormity of such conversations – or idealistic about their acceptability.

To me, it’s no big deal. The talking about it, I mean, not the suicidal episode itself. At least, talking about it shouldn’t be a big deal. It should be like discussing a child’s blood sugar levels or broken arm.

But I do wonder: Have I lost perspective in some way? Perhaps so, because of my immersion in suicidology, my conviction that we need to drop the stigma, and my openness about my own suicidal crises.

Either way, even if I am inured to discussions about suicide, that doesn’t make it OK to treat suicide as unspeakable. As I said in an earlier post, it’s awfully hard to help suicidal people – and for them to ask for help – if we treat suicide as a dirty word.

© 2025 Stacey Freedenthal. All Rights Reserved. Written for Speaking of Suicide.