Vulnerability and Shame of Suicide

interconnected, intricately connected to Courage

I was listening to Brene Brown’s the Call to Courage (again) on Netflix. I am a devoted fan of her work. And I was thinking about/setting with her assertion that—

“If you want to know how courageous someone is, you need to understand how vulnerable they’re willing to make themself.”

I think a lot about this as I post these posts and try for a more creative approach to nonfiction and telling my story. I feel vulnerable.

I think about this when I often post about suicide and mental health, fearing that people are rolling their eyes, tired of hearing about it, and don’t want to be reminded of the darkness in my life.

I fear this that others will think that I am simply being emo/calling for attention and wanting support, validation.

But I don’t. I am not. At least not, anymore. There was a time when I was in pain where I’ll be honest and admit that that was even partially or wholly the truth.

But now, I truly believe in this power of vulnerability.

It is deeply striking just how many people die of suicide—the twelfth leading cause of death—and I consider the outward rippled effects, then how many family members, colleagues, community members, fellow church goers, classmates, neighbors are affected by even one suicide?

I know I am the exception to a statistic, to have two in my immediate family and three in my extended one, but the thing is—

Mental health is still so stigmatized.

But suicide is…stigmatized to the hundredth degree? The tenth power? (Thinking back to those math classes from high school.)

I mean seriously— What to even call it? There aren’t words to adequately describe how uncomfortable people get.

And I like words. But I fail to have one to convey this…

Suicide may happen as the twelfth leading cause of death but we don’t want to talk about that. Shit’s dark and scary. The frightening part of humanity that people choose to exit.

But more important and pressing for me is this: I don’t want it to continue. I want people to get help. I feel for them; I’ve wanted to die before. I have had suicide ideation.

But I like to my dad, my brother—and I also know that it’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I have gone through periods of my life where I believed that I was living a hellish existence, in my own life circumstances and imprisoned in my chemically imbalanced mind.

But I also have done the work and get medicated and had therapy and that I have felt better than I ever ever would have thought possible. Where I enjoy life and am so grateful to still be alive.

And most importantly, I know what it’s like, the pain for loved ones and others when someone chooses to die this way. All deaths of family members stick with you but these ones, they really change you; they alter you. You are never the same.

I do not want any one more person to have this same experience that I have had in my life.

When I read the other day that 45,979 people killed themselves in 2020, I thought—that is also how many more family members? At least doubled? Tripled?

How many children? Parents? Spouses are living with that choice, that decision to die.

If I am fortunate—and I am—to have resources to have gotten mental and physical health help, energy healing, and to be able to write and communicate about these issues.

If I am vulnerable to share, and I am—I still feel it, I feel the shame at points—though it’s getting better—about my family’s story, but more importantly, I want this to change. I want it to stop, and at the bare minimum, I want to do my small part in reducing that number.

I want to be brave, to have courage, and to do that I must be vulnerable.