How many times have we heard “why did you wait so long to speak out?” Have we considered what we’ve done to make survivors feel safe to do so? Have we considered what our friend or family group would need to look like in order for a survivor to feel safe opening up about their experiences?
Sometimes our coping strategies need to adjust to these new realities. That doesn’t mean you are failing, it means you need to adapt. It’s no different than what I often encounter at work, where the technology we work with and assist clients with changes and evolves, and we need to change and evolve with it. What we did yesterday isn’t going to work in today’s reality.
The same is true for our mental health toolkit. We need to keep evolving with it to adapt to changes.
I think it’s important that we understand our need for both. As science keeps telling us, we are social creatures. Even introverts like me need some sort of social activity and friends. We also need those intimate relationships where we can hit those emotional connections. Romantic relationships are an obvious example here, but other relationships can also be our emotional connection.
The lack of one of these will feel like loneliness, but the “fix” will be different. If I’m well-connected to my wife but missing out on the variety of social connections that a larger friend group might provide, that’s where my focus should be, and it might show up differently. The lack of an emotional connection would also look different and brings with it a different set of risks.
I do understand this. I don’t make a habit of talking about my mental health when I get to spend time with friends, even though many of them read this blog and know about my history. Mostly, that’s because we’ve bonded for years over other things like work, shared interests, music, etc. Talking about mental health just hasn’t been what we’ve done in the past when we’re together and it’s comfortable to simply slide right back into those same roles when we are together.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Talking about mental health doesn’t have to occur each and every time we communicate with friends. We all get to have fun nights out without having that deep of a conversation. But, talking about it some of the time lets everyone in the group know that, when they need it, they can talk about it.
The suggestion is that more focus should be on triggering events for men; breakups, job loss, and other traumas. That is true. The findings make it clear that a combination of triggering events, alcohol/drugs, and gun ownership will increase the likelihood of suicides.
Here’s the thing, though. I can’t help but wonder if the reason this combination is so deadly is not so much because men do not have mental health issues and then are suddenly contemplating suicide at the first sign of trauma, but that this is simply the final straw in a prolonged mental health struggle that they have never talked to anyone about.
Creating a new number was the easy part. Similar to raising awareness because it’s necessary, it’s essential, but if there is no one there to provide the help we encourage people to reach out for, it’s not nearly enough. Here’s hoping these state and local organizations can find and train people to provide the necessary help during these calls. That’s only a start, of course. We still have so much work to do to make that help accessible to everyone who needs it.
In some ways, this struggle to staff the hotline is a microcosm of the entire mental health field right now. We need a lot of resources that just aren’t there right now. Can we figure out a way to get change that?
