When I look back on my experience of suicidal thoughts and attempts, one barrier continues to stand out to me when I ask the question, “why couldn’t I reach out for help.” The shame I felt within myself for feeling suicidal was so overwhelming. This shame eventually became all-consuming, and I knew that I could never come forward and admit that I was feeling suicidal.
Shame and stigma are born out of our own discomforts around suicide. Our discomfort comes from our own fears of seeing people we love, care for, or even work with in pain. This is why stigma, shame, and fear shape the conversations around suicide.
In my role as a Lived Experience Practitioner, I have noticed that by beginning to explore where negative perceptions of people experiencing suicidal ideation come from, we can have the most impactful conversations.
Within my presentation, I aim to focus on the impacts of stigma and internalised shame and what happens when we begin to have open conversations around suicidality as well as the normalisation of the experience of suicide.
The perceptions we often hear of someone who is suicidal is that they are weak, selfish or attention seeking. When I hear these phrases, it is no surprise to me that people don’t reach out for help.
I will be exploring what happens when we flip the script on shame and stigma. What happens when we no longer call someone weak for having suicidal thoughts and instead, we acknowledge their strength for continuing to fight each day to stay alive. When we no longer call someone attention seeking, and we instead ask ourselves the question ‘what needs are currently not being met for this person?’. When we no longer label someone as selfish, and instead we start to understand that for someone experiencing suicidal crisis, dying by suicide is the least selfish thing they can do at that current time.
Flipping the script on shame and stigma can’t be done alone though. Changing perspectives on suicidality must be a collective action. We can’t take away someone’s suicidality, but when we begin to acknowledge and move through our own discomfort, we can change the way we perceive someone who has thoughts of suicide. We as a community should focus on breaking down the stigma associated with suicide and once we do that, shame will soon follow.