World Suicide Prevention Day from a Different Perspective

Many people who are suicidal hate suicide prevention campaigns. We notice that they are not directed at us, but at would be heroes. They publish lists of risk factors, things to watch out for in those of us who would thwart their efforts. But we fail to see listed what drives us to suicide: poverty, bills, homelessness, rape, child abuse, bullying. Nor do we hear anything about addressing these issues that might actually reduce suicide rates.

What about helping parents understand their children's sexuality so that LBGTQ children don't end up on the streets? What about bully intervention programs in schools (designed to prevent bullying, not treat the victim)? What about universal health care and food security? What about a health care reimbursement structure that encourages doctors to go into psychiatry? What about treatment that isn't demeaning? What about...

Instead, we get posters of "head clutchers." Get a grip.

I could go on. I did go on a month ago in a blogpost titled A Better Suicide Prevention Month. I suggested that people with actual experience of living with suicide might come up with something better than a head clutcher. Because it turns out we do know something about preventing suicide. We do most of the work anyway, preventing our own suicides.

How would you, somebody with lived experience of being suicidal, design a suicide prevention campaign? What messages would you like to see? What do you want to have happen in the month of September to prevent suicide?

That's what I asked. Today I discovered that people really are working on this. The website says.

RE:CREATE Psychiatry is a Mental Fight Club project that emerged in 2015 from our flagship creative space The Dragon CafĂ©, a weekly arts and health pop-up in the Crypt of St George the Martyr Church in Borough.

Mental Fight Club? I have to learn more about these people!

Meanwhile, today they posted one of their projects, a suicide prevention project, a film called Living with Suicide, scripted and produced by Eve Loren. Find out more here. And watch it below:


There could be another way to live... We need to make space for truth... Redefine what is normal... Replace compensation for the dead with help for the living... It's time to change the system... Channel self-doubt into anger... Fight.

It's time to fight.

I have to learn more about these people.

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