Flipping the Suicide Script

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Historically, suicides fell into one of two categories: successful and failed attempts.

A successful suicide was when a person killed themselves through their method of choice.

Failed attempts were divided into how the attempt failed. Either:

  • A person was discovered in the attempt and stopped.

  • The person chose not to go through with the attempt.

  • The person injured themselves and did not die.

That is how suicide has generally been discussed. A person succeeds by dying. Failed suicides are when a person lives. What a horrid way to categorize a still living person.

We indirectly tell suicide attempt survivors: “Congratulations! You lived and you failed!” It must not be this way.

Those that live need not be sidelined, nor is it helpful to regard them as inherently broken. They need care. Reminded that they are not alone, and that despite their best efforts — they successfully failed. The sentence I am most proud of writing is:

“It took me a long time to realize that I don’t suck at suicide; I succeed in living.”

I failed in more things in my life than I can count, and the failures I am most happy about are my failed suicides. I used to think I was a failure at everything, including dying. I reframed my experiences with suicide to be not that I failed to kill myself, but that I succeeded in staying alive.

My hope is that this blog and my ongoing work with Mental Agility helps change how suicide is discussed.

I want extraordinary praise for those who don’t kill themselves; those that succeeded in living because someone found them, or because they just couldn’t see it through, or they were fortunate enough that their attempt didn’t work. I want extraordinary compassion for those that died by suicide and for those left wondering why. More than anything, I want the conversation around suicide to deepen. Become enriched by those willing to share their experiences, and through that sharing decrease those feelings of inescapable loneliness that often accompany severe suicidal thinking.

In the aftermath of my attempts, I felt a deep shame and a level of personal loathing so severe that the only course of action I thought acceptable was to try suicide again.

I was stuck in a brutal cycle that reinforced the worst messages that I could tell myself. This is the cycle I aim to break with my work and alongside my friends advocating suicide prevention.

I hope you’ll join us.

View/Download my Crisis Prevention Workshop flyer for information on the mental wellness training I offer: