Sharing – It takes a village to save a life
I’m glad Chris has a support community willing to do this for him.
Chris Mejia’s friends and family rallied to save him when he was suicidal. He’s alive today because they were willing to have tough conversations, he writes.
But even with that said, he recognizes that the deep stigma we often face is not just talking about mental health generally. That’s the easier part.
If we truly want to eliminate the stigma around mental health, depression and suicide, that means we have to accept that we will need to have uncomfortable conversations with our loved ones. We will have to hear things that are hard to hear. People always ask “How are you?” but imagine if that person replied in a truly authentic way? “I just finished having a mental breakdown in my car before coming out to this birthday dinner.” “If I’m being honest, I think things would be better if I wasn’t alive …” We claim to appreciate vulnerability, but we still have a cringe reaction when someone is honest.
This is a real problem. At an individual level, it leaves the most vulnerable and struggling people alone in their pain. Being honest about what is happening makes other people uncomfortable. We don’t like to be awkward, so we apply subtle pressure for them to stop talking about it. Instead of forming a community of support, we push people away until they’re “better.” We care, but we care more about our level of discomfort.
At a societal level, we make the same decisions. We don’t make emotional intelligence a topic in education. We all grow up without knowing how to have difficult conversations. We push messages about positivity and not letting other people bring us down with their problems. “Positive vibes only!!” We hide people in prisons when things get bad. We offer self-help tips that rarely involve talking to each other, and maybe the worst thing we do is openly deride people who struggle in our public discourse. We take people who are at their lowest and blame them for messing up our day.
Saving a life is not about having a hotline, though they do help. (If you’re struggling, you can find a list of resources here.) It’s not about offering advice like “touch grass” or exercise more. It’s about being in a community that will sit with us at our worst and reminds us that we can get through this because we are not going through it alone.
Too many of us are incapable of creating that community for our friends and family members. If we don’t, who will?
