If we want to save lives, we need to start talking

Editor’s Note

A 2021 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people living with disabilities are more likely to consider and attempt suicide compared to people without disabilities. 

Yet, the topic is hardly discussed among the disability community. HELEN is doing its part to break the taboo by sharing Lisa Sugarman’s story on healing from suicide loss and becoming a mental health advocate. 

We hope it sparks a conversation that finally breaks the silence and saves lives.

This story contains talk of suicide and may be triggering for some readers.

by Lisa Sugarman

Author’s note: This story contains talk of suicide and may be triggering for some readers.

Forty-five years ago, in the summer of 1978, my father died. There was no warning, no accident, no long, drawn-out illness. He simply tucked me under the covers at bedtime and by the morning he was gone. And the narrative I was given as a distraught and grieving ten-year-old, was that he’d died of a heart attack in his sleep. Something I never had reason to question and neither did anyone else. The problem was that it was a lie and I wasn’t going to learn the truth that my father had actually died by suicide for another 35 years. 

So that makes me a survivor of suicide loss. But my survivor story is a bit more unusual than most people’s experience with suicide because I’ve had the unique (and gut-wrenching) experience of grieving my father’s death twice in my life—once two weeks after my tenth birthday and again when I was forty-five when I stumbled on the truth of his suicide after a spontaneous conversation with a cousin.

See, my dad kept his depression and pain hidden from everyone in his life, including my mother and the rest of our family. Thanks to the heavy stigma attached to suicide and mental illness back in the 70s (and in the decades since), my father struggled in silence, until he believed there was only one solution to his pain: taking his own life. A place that all too many people find themselves in who struggle with mental illness. 

Sadly, my father couldn’t be saved by the health care professionals around him because they had no idea he was mentally unwell. And that’s the case with so many people around us who continue to struggle in the shadows, afraid to share their true headspace with the world for fear of the shame and stigma and humiliation that’s attached with admitting we’re mentally unwell.

“Now, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “healthcare professionals maintain health in humans through the application of the principles and procedures of evidence-based medicine and caring.” In other words, they fix people. But what about the people whose ailments are invisible to the naked eye? You know, the ones with mental illness, like my dad, who are/were struggling in silence. How do we reach those people? The people whose mental illness is deftly hidden under a fragile veneer of faux happiness until that façade finally cracks and takes them down. How do we identify or treat or save the ones we don’t know are sick and need help?” 

Well, not to oversimplify, but I believe the answer is actually pretty simple. We encourage people to start talking, openly and honestly, about their mental illness. We offer safe spaces for people to be vulnerable about their struggle(s) and we listen without judgment. Then we validate what’s going on in their heads and hearts to ensure they’ll keep talking. Because when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and honest, it sends out a beacon to the people around us that we’re open to finding help and connection and community and those are the things that promote healing.

And you know how I know this to be true? Because after I learned about my own father’s suicide, I started sharing my story in an effort to change the narrative on mental illness—as a way of injecting suicide and mental health into the mainstream to make it less off-putting and scary. I was compelled to take this taboo subject out of the darkness and bring it into the light so that light could dilute the power of the stigma attached to suicide and mental illness. And it worked. Because the people who heard my story started sharing their own personal experiences and acknowledged that it made them feel less isolated and alone. So I firmly believe that’s how we survive, and even thrive, with mental illness. 

“The problem is, according to Mental Health American, nearly 50 million Americans experience some form of mental illness, resulting in more than 700,000 deaths by suicide each year. And to drill down and make this alarming statistic even more compelling for the physicians reading this, doctors have one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. More than half of the physicians out there know a physician who have either considered, attempted, or died by suicide in their career. And the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says that an estimated 300 physicians die by suicide each year. Again, a grotesque number that needs to change.”

This is exactly why I’ve transitioned from my role as a parenting author and speaker to a mental health advocate and a storyteller, so I can use the story of my father’s suicide as a way of starting the hard conversations that we all need to be having around mental illness. I was also compelled to transform my pain into purpose by becoming a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project, the country’s largest suicide and crisis support network for at-risk LGBTQ+ youth ages 13-24, and a storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), sharing my story around Massachusetts to encourage others to share theirs.

It’s also why I’ve dedicated my website (lisasugarman.com) to changing the narrative of suicide and mental illness by sharing my personal experience with suicide, grief, loss, and mental illness openly and unapologetically. And I’m doing it because the more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more we’re apt to talk about our shared experiences and the more we chip away at the stigma of suicide and its power to keep us silent. And I’m talking directly to you, Health Professionals, because this is a trickle-down effect. 

And it has to start with you.

The tragic reality is that my father couldn’t be saved. My dad was in crisis, but his illness was invisible to the naked eye, so his suicide was the heartbreaking outcome of not being aware of his pain. Others, though, have the ability to be saved if they’re encouraged to open up and share what’s going on inside. As a survivor of suicide loss, I’ve learned, firsthand, that sharing our stories is one of the most impactful tools we have to raise awareness, find community, and change the narrative on mental illness. That’s because talking openly about our experiences is like sending a flare into the sky that allows others with similar stories to find support. And that builds social and emotional connections that will ultimately help us heal.

So, start talking and encourage others around you to do the same. Create safe places and be the one to ask and to share. Because if everyone leads with vulnerability, the stigma doesn’t stand a chance.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please call the Suicide & Crisis Hotline by dialing 988 and a trained counselor will be there to help. And if you’re looking for a comprehensive list of vetted professional organizations where you can source information, guidance, and support, visit my website at www.lisasugarman.com. 

About the author

Lisa Sugarman is an author, nationally syndicated columnist, survivor of suicide loss, storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), crisis counselor with The Trevor Project, and mental health advocate. She’s also the host of The Survivor Series on YouTube, a video series designed to stop the stigma of suicide and mental illness. Lisa writes the syndicated opinion column It Is What It Is and is the author of How To Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids And Be Ok With It, Untying Parent Anxiety, and LIFE: It Is What It Is, available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and everywhere books are sold. Her work has appeared on Healthline Parenthood, GrownAndFlown, TODAY Parents, Thrive Global, LittleThings, GateHouse Media, The Washington Post, and Psychology Today. Lisa lives and writes just north of Boston. Visit her online at lisasugarman.com.