Suicide Prevention Awareness Month: The Harsh Lessons I Learned About Support
(!) Trigger warning: This post discusses self-harm and suicide. If you are struggling, you're not alone. If you are in immediate danger, please contact your local emergency services.
If you are in the United States, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you are outside the U.S., please contact your local health services or search for crisis lines in your country.
support (v)
to hold up or sustain
to encourage, comfort, help, etc. under trial or affliction
to supply or provide assistance with things necessary to existence
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and has been since 2008. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for the age group 15-34. It's the 10th-leading cause of the death in the United States.
Throughout the month of September, mentality on The Recess Bell will be focused on suicide prevention awareness.
Of the 48,824 deaths by suicide nationwide in 2024, 38,977 were committed by men -- that's 80% of the total suicide deaths that year. While men die by suicide at higher rates, women report higher rates of both suicide attempts and self-harm rates -- women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than men.
Severe depression, despair and hopelessness are some of the central reasons why one would want to end their life or harm themselves. These afflictions are often conjoined with long, extended periods of isolation and loneliness.
We've discussed before on mentality the difference between being alone (physically) and feeling alone (materially), and how one can feel alone, even among a sea of people.
That's why I'm here today to discuss the importance of a strong support system and what that does and doesn't entail.
As The Recess Bell is a creative network, support is a topic that's been discussed often here. In nearly every Creator Chats interview we've done on the network so far, one of the common threads that each subject has discussed is the importance of a solid support system for the life and success of a creative.
Creative or otherwise: whether it's from family, friends, coworkers, colleagues, peers, neighbors, therapists or some combination of all of these, support systems can bring all-important doses of encouragement and hope. That's true of every good support system. Unfortunately, every support systems aren't all positive ones.
And here's where I expand on my personal experience.
"Who Can I Run To?"
Who can I run to (who can I run to?)
To share this empty space? (Tell me)
Who can I run to
When I need love? (Oh, oh)
Who can I run to (who can I run to?)
To fill this empty space with laughter?
Who can I run to?
When I need love? — Who Can I Run To, XSCAPE, Off The Hook (1995)
There are some songs where it's the beat that captivates you; there are others where the lyrics just speak to you. The track from Xscape above is one that does both for me. Many other '90s R&B tracks do that for me too, but let me stay focused.
The statistic I opened this piece with — men committing suicide at nearly 4 times the rate as women — is one I really had to sit with upon researching.
I have attempted suicide twice before. In reflections after the fact, the emotional patterns and damaging loops I found myself stuck in were eerily similar before both attempts.
You see, support systems are so important because they can provide trust and safety at desperately needed times. Trust. Safety. These are the two words that my therapist has programmed into my brain the most over the years.
The people that provide both can bring an invaluable amount of comfort. Adversely, the absence of both within a support system can prove costly as it can force one into one of the biggest behavioral drivers of suicidal ideation: suffering in silence.
Men are much more associated with the "suffering in silence" trope than women are. That's not to say that it's exclusive to men; that's certainly not the case. But in a world where machismo culture often reigns supreme, men are often conditioned to "tough it out" or to not show any sign of outward weakness.
I soaked a lot of that stuff up. "Put on a brave face, thug it out." At the time, that felt right to do. In hindsight, it did immeasurable damage to my psyche.
I'm not going to say that I did not have a support system in the past. If I did, it was a poor one, coming partly as a result of my own doing.
Maybe that's just me not offering myself enough grace, as I tend to do pretty often. Again, just ask my therapist.
But, yeah. Have you ever confided in someone, someone you felt some level of safety & trust in, just to have that person use that information against you in some regard? Maybe they took that information and threw it right back in your face during an argument, or maybe they recklessly used it as gossip fodder within your friend group. In any sense, this is a major violation of boundaries.
Maybe you felt like nobody would really care about what you were going through, past a glib remark of "keep going" or "stay strong."
As someone that already had major trust issues, it generally takes a lot for me to open up about something minor, much less something major. Getting something you expressed to someone in confidence used against you not only exacerbated my trust issues, but it also led to resentment brewing in my heart. When they say resentment is poison for the soul, they ain't lying. It stays with you and sticks to you, festering within like a disease.
Poor support systems can lead one to withdraw socially and can also drive down self-esteem. You can begin to convince yourself that maybe you're not worthy of safety within relationships.
No trust, no safety. When you yourself don't feel enough trust and safety in your life, it can become very difficult to provide that adequately to others. If you're someone that truly does care about people, that can bring a lot of shame onto you. In my experience, all the trauma I'd suffered over the years led me to feel broken, often beyond repair or rehabilitation.
I think that's what hurt the most; feeling broken and misunderstood at the same time, ashamed and apprehensive to open up about my wounds. Some days, it would make me tearful. Other days, it would make me rageful. Most of the time, it left me disengaged and feeling empty. Each and every day, it left me feeling pain. And for the vast majority of the time, I kept it all locked inside as the pain drove me closer and closer to the edge. Suffering in silence.
Support: A Two-Way Street
In the lead-up to my most recent suicide attempt, I was more withdrawn and despondent than ever. I forced myself to be present when I needed to be (when at work or otherwise in public). Out of survival, I became avoidant. I felt like opening up about anything I was feeling to my family and friends wouldn't end well — I also put myself in the mindset of "not wanting to bother anyone with my problems."
It got to the point where most of the people in my direct orbit could tell something wasn't right with me, but at the same time were kept at arms-length by me when it came to the true extent of my struggles.
In the aftermath, it came as a shock to everyone. All I could think in this aftermath was how badly I needed support, and would need support to rebound and recover. So, for the first time really: I began thoroughly communicating that to my family and closest friends. I was communicating exactly the type of support I needed and why. It felt so unusual, as I had grown so used to just merely accepting... whatever anyone offered — on their terms, not mine.
Almost immediately upon communicating my needs to my loved ones, the quality of the support I began receiving was almost night and day difference compared to what it had been before. In addition, the raw range of emotions that poured out of me upon doing so was something I had never experienced before.
It was palpable and almost overwhelming; a bittersweet outpouring of both gratitude and regret. Regret in the sense that all that time I had spent hiding my trauma and scar tissue from those closest to me was something I felt was necessary, only to realize that the same people I was hiding everything from were sitting there that whole time, waiting to accept, comfort, and help me.
This isn't intended as a "woe is me" passage. I write this to highlight the importance of support in mental health overall, and in the matter of suicide prevention specifically. The matter of having a good support system literally became a life vs. death proposition for me. With my support system, I'm reminded of all that I have to live for; things that my previous isolation and accompanying pain weren't allowing me to realize.
To reinforce: trust and safety are the pillars of what it means to support someone in need. Sometimes, support in mental health is lending an ear and just listening to someone vent. Other times, it's offering what you can to help better one's situation. As discussed before, support isn't a one-size-fits-all dynamic. What is helpful and beneficiary to one may not be the best for another.
That is why it's important to truly listen (to understand, not just to hear) to your loved one to learn how to best serve and support them. If they express disappointment in you to you, while it can be easy to react in a defensive manner, try to remind yourself that it isn't about you, it's about them in that present moment. Additionally, you never want to create a situation where you make someone regret opening up to you. That can deteriorate trust and safety quickly.
You're my water when I'm stuck in the desert
You're the Tylenol I take when my head hurts
You're the sunshine on my life — Best Part, H.E.R. and Daniel Caesar, H.E.R. (2017)
The lyrics and track above aren't just overly romantic, nor are they just a popular sound on TikTok. They're also a metaphor for how it feels to have people in your support system you truly feel safe around.
Safety is the key deterrent for the severe depression that can unfortunately lead to self-harm and/or suicide. While support can look like lending money or other resources, a lot of the time it's as simple as making yourself a trusted figure in your loved one's life. Whenever dangerous thoughts and harmful habits start to make themselves known, that person that's suffering knows they can turn to you for a helping hand in confidence. I can't speak any more to how valuable that is for someone battling suicidal ideation.
And providing that? It doesn't cost a dime.
