suicide. TALK about it.

My nephew’s father used to wear these bandana’s in his back pockets all the time. It was kind of a signature thing of his, it was just a part of him. Today, like every year on the anniversary of his death, my sister and I wear these bandanas on our wrists in remembrance. In remembrance of the life he led, the life he created, and the tragedy that was the day his life ended.

Five years ago today, David committed suicide and left both of his parents, his younger sister, and the 1.5 month old son he had with my sister, behind. The events of that day and the week that followed are still so fresh in my memory that I could go on for pages about every little detail, but I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer here and ruin everyone’s day with my sad memories. Don’t get me wrong, I am 110% okay with talking about what happened, and in as much detail as anyone is interested in, I am ALL about education and full-disclosure in the interest of preventing future suicides. Feel free to ask me any and every question you can possibly think of, I am open for business.

The number one cause of suicide is untreated depression.

Every 15 minutes, someone dies by suicide.

There are 1,000,000 suicide attempts every year.

90% of people who commit suicide have a diagnosable and treatable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.

Those numbers are HORRIFYING. People will talk about cancer deaths, murders, car accidents, ALL kinds of death so easily. There are TELEVISION shows about all of these avenues of death, but nobody wants to talk about suicide. As soon as someone brings up the fact that a person CHOSE to kill themselves, everyone wants to shut up about it, like it’s some taboo idea that the devil is behind or something and it’s bullshit and it pisses me off. This is a REAL issue, and it can be PREVENTED. There are all kinds of deaths that you can’t prevent, but suicide can be prevented. And instead of everyone educating themselves about the issue and arming themselves with tools they could potentially use someday to prevent something like this from happening,  people want to crawl under a rock and pretend it’s not an issue. They act as if people who commit suicide are crazy, and tainted, and warped. And they’re not, they’re SICK and they need HELP. They need to know that they are not alone, they need to know that people CARE about them, and they need to get to a professional they can talk to.

I wrote up an email yesterday, talking about David’s suicide and how it affected my family, what we’ve learned about suicide and suicide prevention, and I wrote about the community walk next month. I wanted to send it out to my office, and invite everyone to the event. I’m not asking for money, volunteers, anything. I just want everyone to become more educated. I went to my boss to ask permission to send it and he advised me to ask the HR director because of the issue’s sensitivity. I talked to HR, and she said that she would need to read over it, and then talk to the president of the company, because of the sensitivity. I understand this, I do. A long time employee of the company committed suicide last August, and they worry about people here getting upset, and especially because we’re right around the anniversary of his death. Which on one hand, I get. On the other hand, this is exactly the reason I’m trying to get this word out. People are so SENSITIVE to the issue, they want to ignore it and that is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. EVERYONE should be aware of the risks and the signs, and just be all around educated on the issue. The company sends out Relay for Life emails year round, asking for money for this cause, money for that cause, and I might not be able to send an email informing everyone about this horrifyingly real issue that affects more people than anyone even realizes, and it’s really upsetting. I can’t bring David back, all I can do is try to prevent someone elses family from going through what we went through.

That’s all for now guys. I’m here ALL the time to talk about anything.

[1-800-273-TALK; The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.]

RIP David Andrew Faithful Jr.

February 14th, 1982 – August 3rd, 2007