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Why does it take a television show to get people talking about mental health and suicide? The controversy over the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” which documents in graphic terms a teenage girl’s journey toward suicide on an episodic basis, reveals more about those objecting to the series than the series itself.
Suicide is a topic which makes people uncomfortable; it always has. It is one of those taboo subjects which has often been covered up by families saying their relative “had an accident” or he or she died of an “illness,” without giving further elaboration.
Part of the reason for this is the pain involved for those who go through it. When a person takes his or her own life, it is often perceived as somehow a failure of family members who could not prevent it, or worse they somehow drove the person to it. There is a guilt and social judgment associated with suicide which never goes away.
It is true sometimes life trauma does lead people to consider taking their own lives, but more often those who contemplate and commit suicide suffer from mental illness, typically clinical depression. There is no cure for this except time.
Medications, therapy and support groups can help, but, ultimately, it is the person who is holding the gun who decides whether or not to pull the trigger. Friends and family can provide encouragement and companionship, but the battle is being waged in the mind and spirit of the person who is afflicted with the illness.
Suicide has no social type. It is not just a angsty teenage girl Hollywood often portrays. It is not only an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD. It is not just the corporate executive who has lost his job. The face of suicide may be the nice kid with the big smile you once knew up the street, with the supportive homelife and fabulous parents. It may be a local parish minister who helped so many in the throes of spiritual crisis, but ultimately succumbed to his own. It might be the generous college student, who was kind to all who knew him; especially the kids. It might be anybody you know, really.
Most of us at some point, likely, have considered suicide, but for whatever reason the trigger doesn’t exist or doesn’t get pulled. The world grinds against all of us, but sometimes it rubs a specific few raw to the bone. All we can do is support those individuals as best we can, and try to help them realize there is something worth living for. We have to help them believe they will eventually get through this, and come through the dark night to a new and hopeful dawn.