Suicide Prevention Month - #thread

/1 Suicide prevention month should not focus on the individuals who are suicidal. People who struggle with suicidality are not a monolith. #suicide #MentalHealthMatters #MentalHealthAwareness

/2 Some people are suicidal bc of brain chemistry that can be altered thus diminishing those feelings. Suicidality happens to some people when they are homeless. There's no "it'll get better" when someone doesn't have a safe place to sleep at night or rest during the day.

/3 No constant source of water or a place to use the bathroom or bathe. Some people have suicidality due to things that most of the world categorizes as mental illness.

/4 These people are not mentally ill, but rather they are traumatized and reacting in reasonable ways to unreasonable situations. CPTSD, BPD, DID should not be pathologized and neither should suicidality.

/5 The complexes and actions that go alongside with them should be considered in context with life experiences. The way that friends and family support a suicidal person should be considered in context with that person's life experiences.

/6 It is extremely unhelpful when someone adopts the typical anti-suicide narratives that involve hope, recovery, and survival when the suicidal person's lived experiences involve broken trust, abuse, manipulation, and danger.
At least for me, suicidality is a constant force.

/7 I am reminded with the ebb and flow of my small energy stores that doing the bare minimum: getting out of bed, advocating for my medical care, just thinking about talking to friends, eating takes too much effort on most days.

/8 The huge amount of effort it takes to live is just too much to bear for an indefinite time such as the rest of my life.

/9 And my example sounds absurd when taken in context with what my friend Kristen was facing before she died: trying to change her identity to hide from her controlling and incestuous father but having road blocks put in her way.

/10 Not to mention other personal tragedies she faced from being in forced poverty due to being disabled.
Suicide prevention month should not focus on the individuals who are suicidal.

/11 It should not focus on "getting help" as if help is readily available and not heavily gatekept by way of expensive providers who don't take insurance and psychiatric institutions that are more violent and carceral than healing.

/12 Suicide prevention month ought to focus on how we can better provide support to people before things reach the critical point. What we need to demand of these systems, how we can break them and rebuild.