Talking About Suicide | Helena Busia

When someone commits suicide, who is allowed to talk about it?

I have never lost anyone particularly close to me. I have never known someone to take their own life. How do I therefore, have any right to talk about this? Isn't it the old saying- "Write what you know". 

But I don't know. 

In hearing the news of someone taking their own life, I feel intrusive to their loved ones and to the deceased, commenting or writing about their situation. I can hear voices saying "Well you barely knew her". I feel selfish talking about how it's affected me; how a girl I barely knew's death has made me cry quiet tears. 

Nevertheless, I'm going to try and talk about this, in the best way I can. 

I have been lucky enough to be part of a family through my theatre projects. A loving, crazy, slightly dysfunctional family, full of show-tune-belting theatre kids. Tonight, I found out we had lost one of the members of our family. 

I didn't know this girl very well, but I know that she was talented and dedicated, she helped to create beautiful pieces of theatre that we were all proud of. She helped to clean and finesse our dances. She helped us be the best we could be. 

As humans, when we lack pieces of information, we use our judgment and our imaginations to fill in the blanks. I don't want to imagine a girl, who was only fifteen, feeling so alone that she felt the need to take her own life. There I go again, making assumptions. Maybe she wasn't alone. I don't know these details, I can't assume; and yet I do. Is that human nature? 

I was a fan of a certain TV show up until this point. Now it feels tainted somehow, as if what we were seeing on the screen was a foreign concept up until this point. You forget that suicide isn't a romantic notion; that it actually equals death, until its too late, until someone becomes another tragedy, another statistic, whatever you want to call it. 

It feels stupid and callous to write this now, because this girl didn't need a posthumous, mediocre blog post. She needed help, she probably needed a friend.  

I feel like when talking about this kind of thing you have a responsibility to show people there are people and organisations who care. People care. Even when you think they don't, they do. They care more than you know. 

I can't pretend to be an expert on any of this. I feel like when you talk about suicide, you have a responsibility to make available resources that are written by experts. PAPYRUS is an amazing organisation that seeks to prevent the suicide of young people. Here are some links to help you identify someone who you think might be suicidal, or might just need a friend. Also, here is a link to talking about dealing with the grief of losing someone to suicide.

We can talk about suicide prevention all we like, reel out the clichés, but the biggest thing I, and we all can take from this is that a little kindness goes a long way.

I don't want to be the kind of blogger who only writes about sad things, but it looks like its turning out that way!

Hopefully when I write again it will be under happier circumstances. 

My final thought is to you. In your death, I hope you gain the peace you couldn't find here with us. Rest in peace. 

Love, 

Helena