Suicide: the 11th leading cause of death

that is entirely preventable

…or is it?

I want to believe and encourage people that suicide is preventable. It’s a shame to have to believe otherwise.

I would love it if I could really believe that.

But the truth is, more and more, I don’t.

Ultimately, I think that when autonomous adults want to take their own lives, once they’ve made that decision and have a plan and intention to execute/take action, it’s not always possible to prevent it.

I also consider the starch reality that we live in a society that doesn’t offer a lot of solid mental health resources, even for those with insurance and money to pay for them. Good mental health—even you do have those resources—can be very hard to come by. Therapists may give you platitudes like take a ‘me’ day and have yourself a bubble bath—like my student who has anxiety was told. Or, when a friend of mine was trying to share with her therapist about her parents’ emotional manipulation and narcissistic abuse, she was told to be grateful that they loved her and “at least” they weren’t alcoholics.

I shudder to think of the long-term and far-reaching the harm therapists like these do. All while getting paid for it.

We also live in a society where mental health is still so heavily stigmatized.

We live in a society where it’s easier to self-medicate and to try to repress and escape through booze or weed or other drugs, than to address the pain and how much it hurts to live. It’s cheaper. Takes less time. More accessible, easily. No trial and error to figure out what meds work for you—just take this substance and evaporate into oblivion.

We live in a society where people have lost hope. Collectively and individually.

I’ve traveled on the path of mental health wellness, of learning to live amidst truma, with alcohol abuse, and —

I have had enough money and have enough intelligence to read and advocate and look for resources. I’m single and don’t have children. And it’s still been challenging.

If I had had several children? Couldn’t read so well? Didn’t explore many therapists and read that there were different methods to try? If I had that one shitty therapist that told me that my problem was a lack of faith?

Forget it.

It could be very easy to say screw this; I’m going to stop at the liquor store on the way home.

Hell, I did that AND I had therapists.

But I also had hope that there was more knowledge and resources out there.

Hope, even in such simple things, in the smallest amount, during episodes of mental crisis, is not to be under-estimated. People in major depressive disorder and having suicide ideation often cling to it—even the smallest things.

But when that hope is gone - forget it.

It can be an awfully long road -

And it’s taken a long time- but I have medications now that manage my insomnia and my anxiety. It’s taken a long time but my central nervous system is calmer - I surprised myself and not being the first one to jump out of my skin the other day at the movies—that’s growth. I always have been for a long time- heightened startle reflex.

But, my point is, because we don’t live in an equitable world, people don’t get the help they need. They can’t afford the help they need. Therapy, medications, community, diet, etc.

Because it’s about money and if you have it, with insurance, you can afford to go to the psychiatrist and psychologist, and shop around if you get a shitty one or one you don’t click with.

And because it’s about looking at one’s entire lifestyle, and considering what needs modifications. In considering the holistic ways of treating the body and mind.

And we’re not cookie-cutters, but it’s a case by case basis.

I wish I could say, let’s join the cause to fight suicide together.

But the ugly truth is this—

People feel sorry when suicide happens. But too often they think it won’t affect them or their loved ones.

And until that does, I also think people find suicide too depressing or heavy of a topic to think about for too long. So we tap out. Mentally. Emotionally. Very Quickly.

Prevention and advocacy I think is mostly done by those who have lost someone to suicide or who have been suicidal or survived an attempt before.

People don’t like to talk about it in conversation, when it gets personal, for even a minute or two - most people don’t want to think about it extensively.

So, why would anything truly change, long-term? Why would it get any better?

It’s only going to get worse.

The statistics of how many Gen Zers and especially the Alpha generation and their mental health states - crises, episodes, conditions, are off the charts levels. National emergency levels. (Haidt - the Anxious Generation).

You know what’s even worse than the 11th leading cause death to be be suicide?

You know what’s even worse that it’s preventable?

That perhaps it’s not. But not in the normal way:

But because of people’s individual autonomy, and because of our late stage capitalism priorities and lack of concern of people’s mental health, and—

How many of us are relieved to just dismiss it and wash our hands of it…

We don’t want to talk about grief of ‘norma’ death that long, we want to expedite it.

As some I once considered very close told me - aren’t you ‘over’ that yet? (Those two suicides)

But it was said as a joke, ha… ha?

But, honestly, ultimately, we don’t want to have to focus on it often because it’s not ‘my’ issue, in that it hasn’t affected me personally…

….

yet.