We Need to Talk About Suicide

In 2011, I was in the psychiatric hospital because I’d tried to kill myself for the third time that dark year. I wouldn’t be released unless my psychiatrist believed I was no longer at risk for “harming myself,” the common euphemism for a suicide attempt. He asked: “You’re having self-destructive thoughts?” I lied: “No. But I worry they could come back, once I’m in ordinary life, with work, family.” It was what he wanted to hear. “Progress,” he said.

Even in this context, I didn’t feel I could speak openly and frankly about my contemplation of suicide. The idea is so thoroughly stigmatized that we are all supposed to pretend that we never think this way. For centuries in the West, and still in many nations today, suicide was considered among the vilest of sins and most heinous of crimes. The World Health Organization lists “stigma and taboo” first in its obstacles to making progress in preventing suicide.