Suicide survivors ‘coming out’ to fight crisis
For many years, Gregg Loomis hid the attempts from others. He worried about the effect on his insurance business. He had seen people’s view of him change once they found out. He had lost friends that way.
So two days before his trip to Capitol Hill, Loomis sat in his office in a New York City suburb, agonizing over what he might say. How do you explain to total strangers the most painful, private moments of your life – the moments you tried to end it.
A suicide prevention group had sent notes to him and other volunteers to prepare for the trip. He wouldn’t be talking with actual lawmakers, but with their legislative aides. He’d have 10 minutes, 15 at most, to tell his story and plead for funding and legislation.
“That’s not a lot of time,” a worried Loomis, 61, said as he went over the notes.
Until recently, the suicide prevention movement has been driven largely by family and friends of those who died. But in recent years – as suicide rates have climbed to historic levels – survivors of suicide attempts have been “coming out,” determined to combat the problem even if it means speaking out about their own, often-hidden pasts.
Their emergence in unprecedented numbers in the past five years has transformed the suicide prevention world. Clinicians who once hid their own attempts for fear of having their objectivity and work questioned have started revealing their history to peers. Researchers trying to understand suicide, who previously focused on post-mortem data and environmental factors, are starting to embrace the relatively new idea of reaching out to people who experienced it directly. And advocates are harnessing those voices to raise awareness of suicide as a public health issue and win sorely needed funding and attention.
The new momentum comes at a time when suicides in the U.S. have hit their highest levels since the Second World War.
Since 1999, suicide rates have climbed 33 per cent. Roughly 130 Americans now die by suicide each day, making it the country’s 10th leading cause of death. And yet, government funding for research and prevention has lagged far behind all other leading causes of deaths. Funding for it is regularly dwarfed
by ailments with only a fraction of the death toll regularly – despite the profound trauma and costs of suicide, including more than $50 billion lost in work productivity each year.
“We are where cancer was in the 1960s, or AIDS was in the 1970s, or Alzheimer’s 10 years ago. We haven’t pierced the national consciousness,” said John Madigan, head of public policy at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “We haven’t put a face on the problem.”
As he packed for Washington, Loomis thought about the darkness he felt the first time he had tried to kill himself, while in college – the all-consuming pain and his desperation to escape it. He thought about his last attempt, in 2008, when the hospital forced him to leave after five days, while he was still mentally fragile, because that’s all his insurance would pay for.
He thought about the first time he talked about any of it publicly at a suicide awareness event four years ago, and how he had teared up and had to pause to gather himself.
“It’s not like this is some badge of honour you want to wear in public,” he said. “It’s not something I’m proud of. But if there’s something I can do to help.”
The field of suicide research and prevention is only four to five decades old. For most of that span, those who survived suicides were considered too ill or too disturbed to contribute.
“Survivors were seen as people to be studied, rather than partnered with,” said Ursula Whiteside, a researcher with the University of Washington. “It was an ‘us and them’ approach. The ‘us’ were people helping and the ‘them’ were people who needed help.”
Implied was the concern anything could send such people over the edge. Until recently, for example, clinical drug trials for mental illnesses routinely removed all patients with any suicidal thoughts. As a result, researchers note, little is known today about what medicines might reduce suicidal thoughts and impulses.
“Even among suicide researchers, when someone comes out, there’s a fear people will start questioning their competency and work,” said DeQuincy Lezine, a researcher who is open about his suicidal past. “You hear questions about whether they should be answering calls on prevention lines, or working as clinicians.”
That began to change in 2011, when Marsha Linehan – a towering figure in the field who developed a treatment called dialectical behavior therapy that can be effective on illnesses such as borderline personality disorder – revealed publicly that she struggled with suicide throughout her life. Others soon followed suit. “Once you see someone telling their story, it’s less hard to tell your own,” Whiteside said.
In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died by suicide, but the number who attempted it was almost 30 times that – meaning 1.4 million survived such incidents, according to federal statistics.
Suicide experts now use the term “lived experience” to describe what such survivors offer their field.
Their insights have led to new lines of research and pilot programs deploying survivors to counsel other patients at risk.
After refining his story all weekend, Loomis reduced it to a single short sentence, introducing himself as “an attempt survivor and someone living with bipolar illness.”
He explained his careful word choice in a meeting with a staff member for Rep. Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y.
“I don’t say, ‘I’m bipolar.’ I say, ‘I have an illness,’ because that’s what it is, like cancer or any other illness,” Loomis told the staff member. “The stigma around suicide is huge. We say someone ‘committed suicide’ because it used to be considered a crime and sin. Churches wouldn’t even let people who did it be buried in their cemeteries.”
The idea seemed to resonate with the aide, who jotted notes as Loomis explained the need to enforce laws requiring insurers to provide people with mental ailments the same resources they give to those with conditions like heart disease.