Where to get help
Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)
Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)
Youthline: 0800 376 633
Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)
Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm)
Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)
Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155 Samaritans 0800 726 666
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111. of a known mental health condition.
Not everyone who contemplates suicide is mentally ill in a diagnostic sense. But it’s not binary, because they’re certainly not mentally healthy either.
And it’s important — life-saving even — that they can talk about the truth of their lives.
New research, published last month, identified “self-concealment” and “perfectionistic self-presentation” as linked to greater levels of psychache (psychological pain) and predictive of suicidal ideation. It’s officially life-threatening to bottle it up.
The findings are robust. It is clear that people who mask or conceal their psychological distress are particularly at risk of taking their own lives. It’s something Crossan has certainly experienced. In the dog-eatdog world of tech start-ups it is not permitted to show any chink in your armour, let alone existential agony.
“I was coached by my first investor at the age of 22 to never let weakness show. Vulnerability is for pussies. People buy positivity,” says Crossan.
The researchers behind the perfectionism study say their findings underscore the importance of identifying people who are high on self-concealment and perfectionistic self-preservation as part of the campaign to bring down suicide rates. Another study, from the UK, found “socially prescribed perfectionism” — hello Facebook — was particularly dangerous.
I understood what Crossan meant when she said “pushing boundaries creates isolation and lack of perspective”. It’s the isolation that is the killer. I think being told you’re so brave for sharing your feelings is helpful if it means you feel connected and supported. But when it is a sort of mawkish rubbernecking at your emotional risk-taking — “You really put yourself out there, don’t you?” as one person said to me — it can make you feel doubly stigmatised.
I believe societal norms will change one day and we will be able to accept that feeling desperate and despairing sometimes does not make you a freakish sick person. It simply makes you real.