September is national suicide prevention month.
Suicide is a taboo topic and most people can’t hold an informed conversation about it.
Chances are, regardless of where you live, most people have been directly affected by a suicide. Perhaps a relative or close friend killed themselves.
Even if removed one by one degree of separation, a suicide hits home. It makes you think.
The Rio Grande SUN has always had the policy that we write about known suicides. It’s not to sensationalize, nor sell newspapers. It is a means to create a conversation.
If anything, writing about suicides hurts our circulation and angers readers who speak in hyperbole about the story and the newspaper in general.
A good example of society’s fear of talking about suicide is the Netflix series 13 Reasons. It follows a high school girl’s interactions with friends, enemies and frenemies. It tackles suicide and dissects people’s satellite roles in a suicide.
It’s been panned and lauded for all the reasons above.
The series is informative, powerful, educational. Teens should watch it with their parents. Yes, you’ll all squirm at times but the enlightenment is worth it.
It’s also available in archaic book form. You know, paper, with printing on it.
The lead story in the Albuquerque Journal is about a spike over the summer in suicides in Farmington. A good first guess would point toward the pandemic forcing us into isolation but Farmington’s problem bears closer evaluation by professionals. In the late 1990s Pojoaque had a terrible problem with teen suicide. We wrote about it extensively to withering criticism. After a few years the school district took it seriously, changed policies and created a safe environment for teens to communicate with counselors.
Today if a Pojoaque School District student jokes about killing themselves, they are sent to Christus Saint Vincent for an evaluation. That’s what writing about it, talking about it, facing facts and enacting solid policies does. Pojoaque’s rates are significantly lower now. Not zero, but not the high numbers we saw over 20 years ago.
We applaud them every chance we get. It’s one of the few times the SUN has written extensively about a problem and a group stepped up and confronted it. Ignoring the problem is a norm.
When someone kills himself, loved ones, friends, relatives, acquaintances are left behind with so many questions. It’s natural to compare your insides to the dead person’s outsides. That is never a good comparison.
We want to look at our life and situations and compare it to a thumbnail of information we have about another person’s life. An equitable comparison can’t be made.
When someone kills themselves, it’s natural to assume they had a “bad” life, were in a difficult situation or had come to a point where there was no other choice but death. A vast majority of suicides are performed because the person thought there were no other choices. But that’s never true. There are always other choices.
There is also a lot of help available. Here are some of the many helpful ideas from New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel.
Listen to people who are suffering in any way. Offer support and assure them help is available.
Connect with people who are lonely, isolated, or depressed. During times of forced isolation even the most mentally healthy can have bouts of depression.
She encourages reducing the stigma associated with mental illness and suicide. It discourages conversation and encourages suffering in secret.
Push elected officials to ask for more funding for counseling, substance abuse treatment and suicide prevention programs.
If you or someone you know has suicidal ideations contact the New Mexico Crisis and Access line at 1-855-NMCRISIS (662-7474). This line is available 24/7/365.