Because it's not a taboo
How many people working on crisis lines have had their own experience with suicide? Cathy Read-Wilson’s suicide attempt came after she had started volunteering with one. She found that the organization didn’t panic, later hired her and has worked with her ever since. Cathy explains the system, including how it keeps her supervisor informed when […]
This month I came across The Siwe Project, which focuses on mental health awareness in what it calls the “global black community.” What drew me there was a newly posted essay by Carolyn Edgar, who describes herself as a Harvard law graduate, a writer and a single mom. Her essay for the project’s No Shame […]
“You want to stop a conversation quickly? Tell someone you’d like to make a funny movie about suicide. It’s a little like asking a stranger about their favorite masturbation techniques. A sour look is followed by uncomfortable silence and a quick exit.” This is how longtime director Mike Stutz introduces his new documentary, “Don’t Change […]
“So many care providers only see people when they’re not well. They don’t get to see the other side. The gift I have, I get to see all sides.” Yvonne Bergmans started a support group for suicide attempt survivors at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto more than a dozen years ago, and she has been […]
Joseph Olszewski, or Joey, says he lost 75 to 80 percent of his friends after they found out about his suicide attempt. But he says the attempt, in a popular Brooklyn park in the middle of the day, was like pushing the “reset” button on his life. The friends he lost? They weren’t real friends […]
Cory Cobern is in the middle of making himself over. The father of two is soon to become a social worker and runs one of the very few support groups for suicide attempt survivors in the U.S. It’s encouraging to hear that his openness about his own experience didn’t keep him from working for a […]
Katie Ayotte’s story is a striking mix of what resources are becoming possible for suicide attempt survivors and the disconnects that remain. At least two fascinating twists lie ahead as she talks about becoming a peer leader of a rare attempt survivors support group in the U.S. Katie also expresses a major problem of suicide […]
Was there really a time not so long ago when parents who lost a child to suicide were blamed, silent and ashamed? This was one of the surprising things I learned from Ginny Sparrow. Ginny is a survivor of suicide, which is a term that can be confusing at first. Survivors of suicide have lost […]
The resources for people in a suicidal crisis are often pretty bleak beyond a crisis line call. I was happy to hear about a new project called Waking Up Alive, which appears to be the first of its kind in the United States and one of a handful in the world. Sabrina Strong, a suicide […]
After coming across photographer Douglas Ljungkvist, who was quoted in the previous post, I e-mailed him. He says his series of portraits of attempt survivors began after a friend’s suicide. Intense research into the subject followed. “Having reached out to numerous NGOs, government agencies, the media and medical community, without getting anywhere, I came across […]