Dear American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,
I gathered with hundreds of Santa Barbarians on a glorious morning for the Out of Darkness Walk last Sunday. After years of saying, I should join the walk and not doing it, I finally gathered up my courage and signed up. I signed my young children up too, thinking it would be a good experience for the four of us. Newly licensed as a psychologist, I thought it was a good idea to create more professional connections and joining some members of the psychological association in the walk would allow me to network while supporting a cause that was very important to me.
There was a lot of bickering on the way out of our house that morning.
Just get your sunblock on please, I’ve asked you to do it three times.
Why do we have to do this? I don’t want to go.
Because it is for a good cause.
Where are my shoes?
Why don’t you put them on the shoe rack when you take them off, then you wouldn’t lose them so much.
On and on it went, anyone with kids knows this grumpy routine of leaving the house and trying to be the left-brain for everyone. It is especially bad on an early weekend morning when we’d all prefer to hang around in pajamas for a few lazy hours.
When we arrived at Leadbetter Beach, my kids were surprised at how many people were there. We made our way through the crowd to the sign up desk and got our nametags and then moved over to the bead table. I was not prepared for the bead table. Displayed before us was a rainbow of beaded necklaces. Red is for the loss of a spouse or partner, orange for the loss of a sibling, gold - a parent, green for my personal struggle, blue for support of the cause, teal because a loved one struggles, purple for the loss of a relative or friend, white for the loss of a child, silver – a lost first responder or military service member. Standing at the table my children said to me, “What should we take?” I said, “purple for your cousins’ grandfather who died by suicide in October.” I took the purple beads too in honor of him and for the two friends that I lost before him. I also picked up blue and my children grabbed it too. We were there to support the cause of suicide prevention. Then I picked up teal, “Who do you know who needs that,” my son asked. “For Uncle Monkey who is still struggling, for some of my friends, and for a few of my clients.” My children began to walk away with their three necklaces dangling from their necks. They were looking for the pastry table.
I stood there, the green strand haunting me, calling to me - my personal struggle. My mind was racing. This will out me if I grab the green beads. Am I ready for this conversation with my kids? Are they too young? Maybe they won’t notice if I grab it. Will my colleagues notice? Would they ever refer to me if they saw this color around my neck? They will think I am unstable, even though I haven’t struggled for 2o years. Don’t take it, don’t risk it. You’ll be a fraud if you don’t take it. But, we need more people to be honest and take these darn, green beads.
There I was, frozen at the bead table. I have been a member of the American Association of Suicidology for years. It took me two and a half years to write my 300-page dissertation on suicide and survivors of suicide. I follow the research and community of sociologists closely. The suicide death of my classmate and colleague after graduate school showed me how my field, the mental health field, treated suicide. We were no different than the rest of the world. There was no outreach to her classmates or teachers – all of us knew she struggled with suicide and lost her mother to a suicide death at the age of 2. She did speeches about it to our class. But, we did not gather and talk about our feelings of guilt, anger, negligence and abandonment. Nothing was said, nothing was done, my school just pretended it didn’t happen. A few of us mourned together at her house with her husband and toddler son, but mostly, through the experience, I learned that mental health professionals were no more awakened to the plights of a suicide loss than bankers.
I am always struck by the lived experience of suicide and the brave folks who open themselves up to tell their story in order to address the stigma and to heal their shame. There is so much shame around suicide, all elements of it: the thoughts, the attempts, the loss of someone to a suicide death. Shame hugs suicide like a child in a large crowd hanging onto his mother’s leg for dear life.
When asked, I am a very open person about my experiences. I am also a psychologist who has been predominantly trained in psychodynamic theory. I am supposed to be a blank slate. I was never very good at being blank though. When I see brave people advocate against what harms them, I am full of admiration and experience a bit of envy. I am an introvert by nature and advocacy is an extrovert’s journey. Grabbing that green strand of beads would mean so much. It would mean that I am ready to support the cause from all sides as a survivor of suicide, a clinician, a researcher, and a survivor of suicidal ideation and behavior.
I picked up the green strand and hung it around my neck and walked over to my children to take a picture in front of an enormous chalkboard titled “Why I Walk”. My daughter misses nothing. Immediately, she said, “why do you have green on, Mom? Did you try to kill yourself?” I responded to her, “I did go through a really hard time when I was a teenager and I am happy to talk to you about it, but let’s do it when we are alone after the walk. You all can ask me any questions that you have”.
We walked over the psychology association’s table to say hello to my colleagues and I watched some of their eyes glance down toward the strands of beads swaying from my neck. They did not say a thing. I was the acutely aware of my green strand and had a strong urge to tuck into my shirt. I also knew that one of my clients was in the crowd and worried about them seeing me. Before the walk commenced, we gathered as a group and speakers shared stories of suicide loss and personal struggles with suicide attempts. Then they made us hold our beads up over our heads. They went from color to color, spending time honoring each person’s experience. I was mortified. Not only had I donned the green strand, but now I had to take it off and proudly hold it over my head. I did not know it at the time, but I was being filmed in that moment and it was my hand on the news that evening holding the green strand.
I walked with courage and gratitude with my children that morning. Holding the beads over my head was an awakening. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am a survivor of the effects of mental illness and I am proud that I have lived experience. I think my journey near the edge of that great abyss has deepened me as a person and enhanced my work as a clinician. And quite frankly, any clinician who judges me because I have been deeply touched by suicide is not someone I would refer to either.
Why do I walk?
I thought I was walking for the tortured souls whom I cared about and lost to suicide. I thought I was walking for those who are under my care as a clinician. I thought I was walking for prevention research to help find a way to stop the ever-increasing numbers of those who die, attempt to die and lose a loved one to suicide in this country. I thought I was walking for my fellow Montanans who have the highest rate in our nation, for Native people who are second to Caucasians in suicide deaths, for women who attempt suicide 3 times more than men, for men who die by suicide 3 times more than women. I thought I was walking for the millions of people who, like me, lost someone to suicide. I was walking for all of these reasons and for one more. I was walking for myself. I was honoring the path behind me that was hard and dark and dangerous and the path before me on a spectacular beach on a warm, summer morning with my three, beautiful, brave children at my side. Last Sunday, I left my shame on Leadbetter Beach as if it was a moldy, old towel that no one should wrap herself with after surfing the salty waves.
I will see you again next year.
Brooke