This blog is a letter from our co-executive director to you. As we enter Suicide Prevention Month, Lindsay had some stories, thoughts, and hopes to share.
We’re sitting on the patio in the oppressive, muggy Florida evening when my friend Kaitlyn gets a call she’s been anxiously waiting for. Text message after text message, call after call, and no one can reach her best friend Brittany. The fear and worry are stacking on her shoulders because Brittany’s family can’t find her either.
Kaitlyn finally receives a call and walks just a few feet outside before she drops to her knees and begins to wail. Brittany’s been found and she’s gone.
In this moment of loss—the summation of a million moments, a million threads of connection, and millions of unique things that only belong and exist in our person turn into a gaping void that is never replaced or refilled. This is the moment Kaitlyn says, “We lost.” Lost the fight for recovery, for healing, for a tomorrow that was worth living. A fight to help her friend stay alive.
The days and weeks moved forward and I watched my friend fight to wade through a new pain, one of grief and loss. We work in this field, we know what to ask, we know how to get help, and Brittany had gotten care. Yet, it wasn’t enough.
When suicide prevention month comes around every year, I know two things:
- We have to keep fighting to keep people alive.
- Prevention is the goal, but it’s not a genie in a lamp where the challenges and the depth of the pain people face are wiped away.
This fight includes offering people tools, resources, and safe spaces and connections to help them find their way to the truth that life is worth living. A truth that may feel too flimsy to hold in the midst of pain—but others can hold it tightly to ensure it’s there always when needed.
This is a fight not just for more education and awareness (yet it certainly includes that), it’s a fight to help people believe the truth that healing is possible. That there are people who would give and do anything for their loved ones to claim that truth as their own.
Along with those in the thick of a dark season, there are survivors among us. We need their voices lifted—those who have survived attempts at taking their own life, those who have survived the brutally painful storms that led them to believe they were a burden to their friends and family, that the world was better off without them.
I’ve been in that place, the place where I’ve also believed that lie. It’s not an easy space to wrestle your way out of—but it is possible.
Research shows us that while people don’t take their lives for a single reason most (90%) have an underlying, treatable mental health challenge like depression. People deserve to heal, and we believe that therapy gives those struggling a chance to. To help us make healing not only a possibility but a reality, there are folks working hard and giving generously to fund our efforts to alleviate and eliminate the barriers people face when trying to access it.
When I think about this year’s Suicide Prevention Month and our choice to rally around the words: “Please stay alive”—I know this is both a plea and a call to action. It’s a declaration of our commitment to hope. It’s a reminder that even amid despair, there is a reason to hold on. By saying “Please stay alive,” we are simultaneously recognizing the intensity of the pain while offering a hand to hold, a space to breathe, and a promise that there is hope, help, and healing on the horizon.
Amid the despair, heartache, grief, and feelings of hopelessness, we somehow continue to witness the incredible strength and resilience of people who, despite their suffering, choose to reach out and seek help. My favorite line from a children’s book says it so beautifully: “Asking for help is not giving up, it’s refusing to give up.”
It requires courage to ask for help, and you deserve to be met with compassion, encouragement, and support when you showcase that bravery.
Our role in all of this, as an organization and a community of people who truly do care, is to amplify the stories of survivors of all types, to provide support, to advocate for mental health resources, and to connect people to therapy. One of the big ways we do this is through our Treatment & Recovery Scholarship Program. And with this year’s campaign, our goal is to raise $200,000 so that we can sponsor over 5,000 therapy sessions.
We know this work can feel overwhelming, maybe even daunting. But there are simple ways for us to include suicide prevention and awareness in our everyday rhythms, spaces, and interactions. You don’t have to do any of it alone either—we’re here, right alongside you, inviting you to join us now and well beyond the month of September.
With hope,
Lindsay
Skye's Mom
Thank-you! Thank-you for all your doing to help those sitting in darkness. I’ve been there but most importantly, my daughter has just recently struggled with the thoughts that led to an attempt. I’m beyond grateful for organizations like yourself for being there when she didn’t believe I’d understand. It’s a conversation we should all be having with our children. Younger and older! My mom just ordered her your t-shirt. I hope it brings more attention to your cause.
Kristi D.
I’ve been with your group for a while (ever since I learned about the semicolon); I have been suicidal since 14, and at almost 52, I may be starting EMDR on Monday. I understand whyno one has ever told me about it before. I’ve been on all the medications up through lithium and auvelity, to treatments like Spravato and TMS. I mean, all I really had left was electroshock, and then a friend who has trauma PTSD, and her husband has Combat PTSD, was talking to me about, and I said, “What?” No one have ever mentioned it before, but then, with the situations I’ve been in since 2006, mental stability hasn’t been one of my defining traits.
I have a few of the scrunchies, and one of the long sleeve, “We Need Your Presence, Not Your Perfection” shirts. I’ve participated in a few of the walking fundraisers on Facebook, but surgically, I haven’t been able to help this year.
I use “The Hopeful”, though I know a lot of my answers would get me a padded cell. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But after all this time of trying over and over to hang on by the tufts of grass, those roots are showing, and are about to give way.
All I want if for the people who love me to be free of the burden, so they can live their lives without having to waste even a moment on me, because a moment is more than I deserve. I want them to realize they love an “ideal”, of what I could have been, before “THEY” got to me. But there are no time machines, no TARDIS here. There’s no changing what happened, because it would destroy the future…like my children being born…and I would die a thousand times over before I let that happen. In the end, “THEY” did get to me, so I can never be that person I was meant to. I’m an imposter, a thing, an abomination that doesn’t deserve to draw breath.
And you know, the one reason I haven’t lately made a serious attempt at it? I promised my 16 year old daughter, when she and her 21 year brother found out I’m a cutter (I haven’t cut since this point as well), that I wouldn’t cut my self anymore. I’ve kept that promise since May 9th, 2016…despite the fact that she has gone NC with me because she believes the lies her father spreads (my son still talks to me every now and again, which I am told is normal for an almost 30 year-old!)
But I guess it’s good that she hates me and tells people I’m dead. Then it won’t matter when I am.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for all the help you’ve put out here for people even like me. There are times when my candle is flickering so very low, and I go to do an entry into The Hopeful (Mind you, I do NOT keep journals!!), and I can feel that light breath come in, not too hard, giving my candle a little more fuel to fight on with.
If the time should come that I DO “Wake from the Dream”, don’t grieve. Not for me. I took someone else’s space, and now it’s finally their turn to Dream.
May you all shelter in the Creator’s hand, and when the the time comes, may the last embrace of the Mother welcome you home. All dreams must end, and when you wake from this one, may you find yourself surrounded by your brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, your family whether by blood or choice, who only waited for you to join them in a new Dreaming…
TWLOHA
We are so sorry to hear you’re carrying the weight of all these heavy things, Kristi. We know how difficult and overwhelming it can be when life feels dark for this long. This reminder isn’t always the easiest to hold on to, but the truth remains that the sun will always rise again. You deserve to see it. You deserve love, care, and support. You deserve the help that works for you. You deserve to live.
We are so happy to hear that our messages resonate with you, that you’re trying to find the help you deserve, and that The Hopeful provides space for you to share some of those feelings. If you ever need more space to share, please know that you can always text TWLOHA to 741741 for 24/7 support.
Nothing you are feeling will ever be a burden to us, and you yourself are absolutely not a burden. Your existence is important, and something to be so proud of. Your life here is not a waste, and the space you occupy is only yours, no one else could play your part. Every person is unique and so needed. You are never taking space from someone else, it’s yours.
We are so glad you’re here. Please know that we are always standing by you and you never have to go through life alone. You matter so much.