If You or Someone You Love

On the month each year that is devoted to the awareness and prevention of suicide, the irony of my story is that it’s the same month my husband ended his life. Mark’s story is so painful for all of us who loved him that it has been, to date, daunting to even try to talk about prevention without enormous guilt for what was out of our control.

When you are suddenly thrust into the club whose name is only spoken in a whisper, you find out quickly that you have plenty of company. Both of my sisters have had family members on their spouse’s side that died by their own hand. While working in the back room of a retail job I had after Mark died, a coworker who heard about my story confided to me that her sister died by suicide, another an ex-boyfriend, the sons of two dear friends – one before Mark and the other after. The list is long and always heartbreaking.

I only have my own experience and am not qualified to make public service announcements, but I do have some thoughts regarding changes I wish for around discussions about suicide. First, please please please stop saying committed suicide. While there are all kinds of self-inflicted causes of death, there is no other kind where the word committed precedes it. Saying died by suicide feels far less shameful, and for someone in my shoes, like you are not judging or casting scorn on the death of someone whose back story and struggles you do not know.

Secondly, mimicking shooting yourself in the head, slitting your wrists, or any number of ways a person can die by suicide is not funny. There are far more people who have lived in the aftermath of these kinds of deaths than you can imagine- family, acquaintenances, strangers, and first responders to name a few. The horror of losing someone you love in that manner is a trauma shared by people who were merely going about their day or doing their job. It is painful to see it displayed as a joke. At the very least know your audience.

Third, if you love someone who is struggling with their mental health help them get professional counseling. After Mark’s death I felt nagged into seeing a therapist but had no idea who to contact nor the energy to follow through. Months later I finally reached out to a friend who worked in student counseling at the same medical center as Mark and her boss gave me a name. I went into a conference room at work and my shaking hands could barely push each number. When someone actually answered I immediately felt like I was going to throw up. In Mark’s case, casting him out to navigate finding the right therapist was unsustainable given his demons and the pain of growing up in a family that never acknowledged their own or that they passed them down to their two kids. In my case, I desperately needed help finding someone who specialized in grief. If anyone would have offered to do some homework on my behalf it would have helped immensely.

Finally, there’s this story. Many years ago Mallory was working at a restaurant during her college years and was at the hostess stand wiping off menus. One of the other hosts arrived for his shift and she started chatting with him. He was usually quiet and introverted and she was hoping to get him to open up a bit or at the very least make him laugh. Sometime later he told her that he had decided that he was going to kill himself later that day but that she seemed like she really cared how he was doing so he decided to stay.

Not every story like that ends happily but it is a stunning example of the power each of us have to prevent the tragedy my beautiful family (and so many others) have lived with for years. We really can change the trajectory of someone’s life when we care enough to carry their tender heart in the safety of our hands for a brief moment.