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