“Who did you lose to suicide? Oh, nobody. Well are you an
attempt survivor? No? Hmm. Well why are you here?”
This
was asked to me by one of my fellow suicide prevention advocates when I first
began to get involved. I honestly didn’t know how to respond. My first instinct
was to apologize. I am not sure why I
felt the need to apologize. Then I got a little frustrated because I felt as if
my passion and desire to help and educate others to prevent suicide was being
questioned. Luckily, I can still answer
no to those questions. THAT is why I am here.
I have
not always been passionate about suicide prevention. It was not until my dear
friend Rick opened up to me and shared that he was an attempt survivor that I became
passionate about suicide prevention.
Until that point, I was like most other people in the mental health field; I
knew that suicide was something that happened yet I still had blinders on to
the impact that suicide has on our society as a whole. Rick’s story inspired me
and changed the way that I viewed suicide forever. I immediately learned that
ANYONE can experience suicidal thoughts and that ANYONE can attempt. This was a
massive eye opener for me and I wanted to do more. THAT is why I am here.
That
conversation changed the course of my life. I have since become a Mental Health
First Aid Instructor, am on the board of the Eastern Missouri Chapter of the
AFSP, created #SEMOSecrets, a campaign on my college campus to get students
talking about their own mental health secrets,
and have attended and volunteered at numerous Out of the Darkness Walks.
I have very open and honest conversations with my children, friends, and family
about mental health and suicide. Yet, I still don’t feel as if I “fit” into the
suicide prevention community. THAT is why I am here.
I have struggled a lot over the
last few months with how and where I fit into the community if I have not lost
someone to suicide and if I am not an attempt survivor. I do not know the pain that losing someone to
suicide brings nor do I know what it
feels like to live in so much emotional pain that I see death as a welcomed
alternative. But, I could. I am not immune and my friends and family are not
immune. Although I have not felt pain associated with suicide, I have felt
emotional pain. I have learned how to use my pain to connect with others. I
have been able to use this, coupled with the education I have learned about
suicide prevention, to help others share about their thoughts of suicide. The
truth is that I NEVER want to feel the pain of a suicide loss and that drives
me. THAT is why I am here.
I may not have experienced the pain
of losing someone to suicide but I have experienced the pain of having a friend
tell me that they were thinking of ending their life. I have experienced the
pain of hearing a friend tell me about their son/daughter/spouse die by suicide
and what they wished they would have known. I may not have experienced the pain
of their situations, but I do experience the pain of those conversations and
that pain is what drives me to educate, advocate, and yell a little louder.
THAT is why I am here.
My hope is that everyone is
educated in suicide prevention. My hope is that teachers, mailmen, grocery
store clerks, neighbors, friends, carpenters, bankers, EVERYONE is educated in
suicide prevention. Our goal is to prevent suicide. How better to prevent
suicide than to talk about it, become passionate about it, educate others about
it before someone dies by suicide? THAT is why I am here.