Happenings in Suicide Prevention

Team Grosvenor, Captained by my daughter, Livy, raised over $10,000 for Suicide Prevention by participating in Burlington, Vermont’s Out of the Darkness Virtual Walk (due to the COVID pandemic). Here we are on our own walk, September 26th, 2020, on the Stowe Quiet Path.

I’m reposting this message above from one of the most resilient, brave, smart, funny, and physically fit people I know. Not only did this person hike the entire 250 miles of the Vermont Long Trail this summer and cook some of the most delicious meals I’ve ever eaten, but he also worked with research peers and mentors at Johns Hopkins where he’s now begun his second year toward earning a PhD in Mental Health (along with some epidemiology and specialization in Autism research). Okay, granted, this young man is my son. But I would say all of this about him even if he wasn’t.

As noted here in Luke’s post, yes, September is Suicide Prevention Month. But, honestly, that’s not good enough. Every day should be Suicide Prevention Day. Every second should be Suicide Prevention Second.

Talk can be cheap—even deceitful and dangerous these days. But not this kind of talk. Not the kind of talk that’s stifled by stigma and shame. If only my late husband had been able to talk about his abuse at the hand of a priest, Father Donald T. Malone, while attending Archbishop Stepinac Catholic High School in White Plains, New York. If only my late husband—father of this young man, Luke, and three siblings—had been able to talk about his mania and depression. If only he could have talked to someone, anyone who would have, should have listened so that he could get the care and compassion he needed to stay alive.

That was in the late ‘70s into the mid-‘90s. This is 2020. “It’s time,” as Mark Ruffalo yells in that scene from Spotlight. It’s time to talk more. It’s time to tell. It’s time to stop living in the land of “if only’s.”

Awareness and action can change this. Telling our stories brings awareness, which in turn inspires action, which ideally at the end of each day has saved at least one life.

For more on this, stories and information about priest abuse and suicide, please visit my space for the unspeakable: www.jennygrosvenor.com. Stop the silence perpetuated by stigma. Stop the secrets that kill. Start speaking up about the stuff that matters, the stuff that can—will—save lives.

I highly recommend this amazing site, http://www.speakingofsuicide.com/ by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, Speaking of Suicide: A site for suicidal individuals and their loved ones, survivors, mental health professionals, & others who care.

Under her tab, “Why I Study Suicide,” after sharing stories of those who died by suicide, Dr. Freedenthal writes:

My reasons sound painful and depressing, but they actually arise from passion and hope.  I am passionate that suicide is what prevention workers often call “a permanent act for a temporary problem,” that people who end their lives have fallen for a trick of the brain that makes them perceive things wrongly.  Emotional pain can do that.  What’s bad in a suffering person’s life can seem everlasting, and what’s good can become invisible. 

Depression and other problems that inspire suicide kill twice.  Before killing their victim, they first must kill their victim’s hope.

In “Why I Came Out of the (Suicide) Closet, Freedenthal writes:

What will people think of you?

What will people say about you?

Some people asked me these questions when I told them I was publishing an essay in the New York Times (“A Suicide Therapist’s Secret Past”) about a very dark time in my life when I made a suicide attempt. I can’t really blame them. I myself had the same fears.

It’s stigma. If I had been pummeled by a tornado and almost died, or survived breast cancer, or been robbed at gunpoint, no one would question my decision to tell others of my experience. However unfairly, suicide and mental illness are treated differently. They are, to many people, unspeakable.

The meaning of stigma is “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” I refuse to abide by the notion that people with suicidal thoughts, depression, and other mental health problems deserve a mark of disgrace.

The title of one of Stacey Freedenthals’ articles says it all: “Shame Festers in Dark Places”: Keeping Suicide Secret

Her book, Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals, was published in September 2017 by Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis. Now a therapist in part-time private practice in Denver, she also has extensive clinical experience in crisis and suicide prevention settings.

Visit her website here: http://staceyfreedenthal.com/

Vermont Coalition to End Suicide
Next meeting, September 12, 2019, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
at Park Plaza Hotel in Montpelier

Yesterday, I attended this meeting of the Vermont Coalition to End Suicide. This is an amazing group of folks–mental health practitioners, crisis team members, representatives from NAMI and AFSP, survivors of suicide loss– from all over the state who are brainstorming, advocating, and putting words into action as they work toward the goal of “Zero Suicide” in our state.

The meeting began by honoring and mourning the recent heartbreaking loss of Greg Eell’s to suicide. See the article from Inside Higher Ed here: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/09/11/university-pennsylvania-director-counseling-dies-suicide

Watch Gregory Eells’s TEDx Cortland Talk, “Cultivating Resilience,” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLzVJVM1BUc

Two strong messages emerged from Vermont Coalition gathering: the critical importance of self-care for mental health practitioners who work with this excruciating kind of loss; and that the message that suicide is preventable must be better promoted and more time-sensitive, crisis resources put in place.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention–Vermont Chapter

Vermont Walks Out of the Darkness
Three Vermont locations will host Out of the Darkness Walks in the months of September and October, to raise awareness and funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).  Individuals are invited to walk or to donate to a walker.

AFSP has set a goal to reduce the annual suicide rate 20% by 2025, with the help of events such as these all over the nation.

Walk Schedules:
Saturday, September 10, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. – Gardner Park, Newport, VT
Saturday, September 17 – Toonerville Trail, Springfield, VT
Sunday, October 2 – Oakledge Park, Burlington, VT

From the Vermont Center for Health and Learning and Suicide Prevention Center website https://vtspc.org/:

Approximately 100 Vermonters die by suicide each year, and in 2014 there were 124 deaths by suicide.  The Vermont Chapter of the AFSP works with the Vermont Suicide Prevention Center, which is a program of the Center for Health and Learning, to raise awareness around the state.  Vermont exceeds the national average in suicide deaths, with a state rate of 19 versus a national rate of 13.

Participating in the Out of the Darkness Walks contributes to the effort of the hundreds of thousands of people who are walking to raise awareness and funds that allow AFSP to invest in new research, create educational programs, advocate for public policy, and support survivors of suicide loss.

AFSP is the leading national not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research, education and advocacy, and to reaching out to people with mental disorders and those impacted by suicide.

Learn more about suicide at:

Top 10 Suicide Prevention Resources
From the Bark Blog
https://www.bark.us/blog/top-10-suicide-prevention-resources/

National Suicide Prevention Hotline
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
1-800-273-8255

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.