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How talking about suicide can save lives

NSPA Lived Experience Influencer, Helen Birch, shares her personal experience of being bereaved by suicide. She highlights the importance of talking about suicide and making information about suicide more accessible to everyday people.

What starting the conversation around suicide looks like to me

It looks like any other conversation – communication between people, back and forth, with some learning and sharing. Yet when it comes to conversations around suicide, things seem to go downhill. Eyes widen, breath is drawn, heads go down, even making excuses about having somewhere else to be.

This still really happens in 2024, even though so many people are impacted by suicide every year, and that figure keeps on growing. In 2023 6,069 deaths by suicide were registered in England and Wales and researchers have found that for each person who dies by suicide, up to 135 people are affected. Yet conversations are still not taking place.

Some readers may think conversations are happening, and in some areas and sectors they are, which is fantastic. However, the reality is they are not happening nearly as often or in the places where they’re needed most to make a real impact in preventing further deaths by suicide.

My own experiences of talking about suicide

I talk about suicide all the time. I was bereaved by suicide 10 years ago this October. It still breaks my heart every October that it’s another year without my partner, yet here I am. I now work in the mental health field, have gained a MSc (Hons) in Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion, and work as a trainer delivering sessions for Harmless around Mental Health, Self-Harm and Suicide prevention, intervention and awareness. I am also a NSPA Lived Experience Influencer. I really do talk about it a lot.

Yet before I was bereaved, I never spoke about suicide. I had no education around it and if I’m totally honest, I was petrified of talking about it. I thought it was never going to affect me and my life. So, I really do get why conversations are not happening, or why when they do happen, they are often full of misinformation and, at points, harmful. I’ve had people tell me that my partner was so “selfish” and they “can’t understand why people can’t just get over being miserable.” Those are a few of the ‘kinder’ comments within conversations I’ve had over the years.

We need to make conversations about suicide happen

This really highlights how much work we still have to do – not only to start conversations about suicide, but to ensure that when these conversations happen, they’re educational and impactful. We also need to be talking about the higher-level work that is happening, such as the Suicide Prevention Strategy.

Most people working outside of this area have no idea what the strategy is or what its ambitions are. I am also aware that there are many amazing people who work in support roles (of all variations) who are not aware of the strategic ambitions. This information is needed. This is where we fall short in our conversations around suicide.  

We need to talk about postvention

Many people I speak to, even professionals, haven’t heard of postvention.

Postvention refers to specialised support for those bereaved, exposed to, or affected by suicide. Despite the term being coined by Edwin Schneidman in 1968, it’s only in recent years that the conversation around it has started to gain traction.

Postvention is a vital word for suicide prevention and another much-needed conversation that is needed. What good is having evidenced based support if many who are working in support roles are not aware of what is out there? How can people ask for support if they don’t know it’s there for them or even what it is they need?

When I was bereaved, I never once heard the word ‘postvention.’ Yet here we are, in 2024, still just beginning to make this part of the conversation. 

Life-saving conversations need to reach everyone

Everywhere we look today, we’re bombarded by adverts, pop-ups, and billboards selling us things we don’t really need, but probably want. Yet, when it comes to sharing life-saving information about suicide, there’s a deafening silence – and that makes no sense to me.

The government, universities, and other institutions could use their power to get strategies and information out to the public. They could use their platforms to reach people on the ground. Lifesaving information that starts conversations needs to reach everyday people, not just remain confined to parliament, academic journals, or conferences that many can’t afford or don’t even know exist.

Stigma and fear are holding us back from saving thousands of lives per year from dying by suicide and millions more being bereaved, exposed to, or affected by suicide. This conversation can no longer wait. We must be the ones to make it happen.

If you do one thing today, have a conversation about suicide. Suicide happens every day, so let’s makes conversations around it happen every day too.