Increasing Rates of Suicide

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

On September 14th there are multiple walks to raise awareness about the problem of suicide. Raise awareness. Promote advocacy against the stigma. Raise money.

One is taking place in my little town of Hopkinsville.

Another one is taking place in Clarksville at the APSU campus.

I was listening to an ad for the latter the other day. And the counselor and mental health expert said that rates of suicide among young folks age 18-25 have risen. Suicide is now the third leading cause of death among American adults.

49,000 deaths in 2022.

1.6 MILLION suicide attempts.

Those numbers are staggering.

They are more than I thought.

In the manuscript of my memoir I wrote that it was the fifth leading cause of death.

Apparently no more. That is an old stat.

I was deeply saddened to hear that.

It’s a soulful solidarity that I feel when I hear those numbers.

I feel for the families and friends of people who are affected by a completed suicide.

To know that there even more is soul-crushing, to say the least.

However, for me, it all comes down to this—

I get that people don’t want to talk about it. Or think about it.

It’s not fun to have to discuss.

It’s still stigmatized.

It’s uncomfortable.

It’s depressing AF.

We get angry or judgmental or feel that another has violated a life contract to opt out of life like that.

But since we so often don’t, even broach the subject, nothing changes.

In fact, it gets worse.

Before long, it just may be too late.

You’ll know someone who has taken their own life. Some family will be shattered. A community or workplace broken. Staggered by the news that someone else decided that living was too painful and so they opted out.

Then we regret it. Then we feel guilty. Then we think—what could we have done?

Maybe we could have talked about mental health beforehand. What to do when mental health crises happen and people are depressed and suicidal and want to die.

Maybe we should address the societal and cultural factors that make living hard and why mental health needs often go ignored. Because people are ashamed or can’t afford to attend to them or substances are cheaper and more accessible.

I often times feel like I just send these messages out, pleading with others to care before it’s too late.

Yes, my family members were dysfunctional. But yours too could very easily be affected by suicide. That’s the scary truth we don’t want to admit too. So we ignore it and pretend that that just isn’t so.

But here’s the thing—

I’ve lived through it. It sucks.

And I don’t want any more people to know the pain and trauma and tragedy of what it feels like to live with a suicide loss than… already exist.

People are dying.

It’s a national public health crisis, numbers this high.

Please talk about it. Acknowledge it. Work to advocate, raise awareness, prevent, bust the stigma. Acknowledge anyone you think may be suicidal or mentally unwell or struggling, emotionally.

Here’s to hoping those decrease, so that we won’t have even higher numbers come 2026.