Thank you
Hello, my name is Daniel
I'd like to take this opportunity to get a little attention
A couple of us are here from the NO 911 campaign which, in a nutshell, is saying if someone
opens up to you about their suicidal thoughts, don't get scared and call the police on them,
if that's not what they asked you to do Just try to be human, give support
and not send someone who might make the situation a lot worse, in many, in fact in most cases
So we have a little explanation there on the table
along with all the Didi Hirsch materials
We have a little explanation of the campaign and a badge you can wear
to show that you're a safe person who's not going to do that
I'd like to talk for a few minutes about 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix show
and also the book, which said all the same things the show does, just 10 years earlier
but of course TV shows get a lot more attention than books do
When I first heard that it was announced, I was really excited
because the story goes that there's 13 reasons why this girl killed herself
and not a single one of them is a chemical imbalance
Not a single one of them is a disability
And when it came out, I didn't see anyone else sharing my perspective
And I saw that the people who liked the show missed the point
and the people who didn't like the show missed the point
What we see in the story is a normal girl
she's not portrayed as being any different from anyone else
and I think most of us can probably agree with that
that we're not some kind of separate species as people who have considered suicide
We're people with extreme experiences that drove us to that point
and that's exactly what happens in the story This girl is a witness to trauma, then receives
trauma herself, I won't go into the details because if you've had a similar experience
you probably don't need to be reminded of it
And what I noticed in the reaction to this was-
there were a lot of complaints from these "mental health" organizations
saying "why is it not addressing that only a mentally ill person would do this?"
That's not true. This can happen to anybody.
And it's also not the fault of failing to reach out
We see, what happens in the show is
she tries to reach out. She tries to talk to friends, her parents, her school counselor
and every one of them is unhelpful, kind of shuts her down, misses the point
She's not willing to use the S word, and because of that, they just completely ignore
what's actually going on even a little victim blaming
and that is very commonly the experience in real life
And that fear of using the word often comes from the fact that there are consequences for that
You know when you tell someone that if you open up to me,
I'm going to make the situation a lot worse,
What that person learns is okay, next time I'm feeling suicidal, the last thing I want
to do is open up to anyone about it I'm going to drop hints and hope that they
pick up on it enough that they'll try to help
Now as I'm standing here in the presence of
many suicide attempt survivors, I feel obligated to make a confession
which is that I have never in my life actually felt suicidal
I've felt homicidal plenty of times I've had plenty of times in my life where
I've felt so driven to my breaking point that I would be willing to kill someone
if that would make the situation better It just so happened that that person was never me
I also have had those traumas repeated
in the name of suicide prevention I was, just this past year, I was taken...
Well, I'm gonna go ahead and say arrested because I was taken by police officers in a police car
just to a hospital instead of a jail
Although I wasn't allowed to leave, the door locked behind me, so it was a lot like a jail too
And the whole time I was not treated like a person
I was put in restraints
I was injected with drugs that I never consented to
And the rationale the whole time is "well, but these are extreme measures
that we have to do to prevent you from killing yourself."
Even though I never said I wanted to do that I was in a crisis situation where I needed help
The problem we see is that once we get to that point
where killing is an option, whether it's yourself or someone else-
that's why they put that phrase "danger to self or others" all strung together
What that means is that the situation has become unbearable
And once you've gone to that point, we've already failed
We've failed as a society, we've failed as a support network
The fact that someone is willing to go that far means that life has failed them
So when we talk about suicide prevention, I find it very strange that so much attention is placed
on the moment someone says "I'm feeling suicidal."
"I'm thinking of killing myself."
That is often beyond the point of prevention We've heard stories about saying
"Hey, I'm gonna kill myself right now" and hanging up because, by the time we've gotten to that point
we don't wanna be talked out of it We've decided "my life is unbearable.
It has been unbearable for a long time.
Life is no longer preferable to death."
Or in my case, a life that remains the same is no longer preferable to getting rid of
the source of that pain and potentially going to jail for it
The whole point of that Netflix show was to demonstrate the process by which we get there
Why aren't we reaching out before it gets to that point, where the S word comes up?
If you want to prevent a situation where life is no longer preferable to death,
then let's make life better Let's reach out and support each other when
someone is feeling a little bit sad, a little uncomfortable
Life is just not quite going the way you want it to
That's the point to reach out and don't expect that someone is going to
reach out to you before it gets worse than it is
At the point where dying or killing someone else is an option,
we're completely out of energy to reach out to someone
who's potentially not going to be any help at all
So we all need to be proactive here We need to see that someone is a little bit stressed
a little bit sad, a little bit upset, and say
"Hey, I'm a human being. I'm a friend. Let me help you out with that."
Let me come to you with the support, and not assume that you will come to me, and not feel
too guilty about it, too afraid, too- not bad enough to deserve support
And we also need to be aware of societal oppression
race, gender, disability, all kinds of things, more than I could possibly list in just a couple minutes
We need to look at people who are being treated
worse in general, and work on that not being the case
That's what suicide prevention means to me
It means we improve our society
We make it so that life is better Because if all we do is wait for someone to
use the S word and then freak out and say "Hey, no no no, that's not true, life gets better"
Well that person's experience is that life hasn't ever gotten better
We need to make it true
If I'm in that situation, and I hear those words, I just roll my eyes and say
"You're lying. You're giving me a generic platitude."
I need to see, if I'm at that point, where I'm so distressed that I feel like killing someone
is the only way out then I'm not going to respond to words
I'm waiting for someone to do something, to make life better
So that's what suicide prevention means to me
It means a daily practice, supporting each other, improving our society, improving our culture
making life more bearable
Because until you change the situation that some people's lives are so painful to live in
that death is better, then you're gonna keep seeing more suicides
[Applause]
Hi, my name is Lorna, and I'm here with my husband Rick...
No comments:
Post a Comment