The Taboo Nature of Suicide

I’ve been thinking about suicide ideations, passive suicidality, MAID, and death by suicide lately.

This post will take a detour from the last few posts and be a little longer. It deserves a bit more attention and care. I’m breaking it into two parts, possibly even three. The first part will serve more as a disclaimer and discuss why the topic is so taboo and difficult to have. The second part will get into some reasons for suicide, though the list is not extensive, and no one knows for sure why anyone who has died by suicide decided to do it. They are no longer here to tell their reasons. Obvious trigger warnings as well.

Before I start, I want to state that I am not suicidal. No need to be alarmed. I’ve talked about it in the past. It’s no secret I’ve consulted a medical professional about MAID and plan to again. I’ve also had a conversation with others in the past on the topic. I’m passionate about the topic and I get misconstrued often. I can lean into frustration and blame which is uncomfortable, especially if you’ve lost a loved one to suicide.

This is a sensitive topic and people get it wrong sometimes, myself included.

I’ve seen others like Teal Swan get dragged up and down the streets for her discourse around the topic. You can’t get a topic like this right. It will rub someone the wrong way. It will come off as insensitive and encouraging suicide to some. This is the nature of taboo topics. They aren’t talked about for a reason. They are meant to be avoided. Kept quiet. Ignored. It takes courage to talk about it. Mostly because it comes with backlash. Talking about suicide is a surefire way to never get hired. But people brave it and share their stories of suicide anyway.

Right now, I’m reading, "Not Yo’ Butterfly” My Long Song of Relocation, Race, Love, and Revolution" by Nobuko Miyamoto. On the day I started writing out this blog post, literally that same evening, I read about the death of her grandmother. She talks about how her family on her mother’s side comes from a Samarai family. She talks about how her uncle, then 9-years-old, living with cancer, had died. Soon after, her grandmother also died. Her mom told her that her grandmother died of “a broken heart.” Years later, her aunt told her the full story. Her grandmother had taken her own life by drinking a bottle of Lysol. She died on a Sunday, and by Monday, they were all back to school, pushing through life as normal.

This resonated with me. When I was really ready to depart, I opted for Drano.

I read Fat Joe’s memoir recently too, and he talked about having ideations once in his entire life. The night his half-brother denied him as a brother, he got in the car and thought of driving it into a wall. He didn’t and claimed it never happened again. He noted how it took courage to say that out loud and to share it with the world. This is because there is so much stigma behind the topic. Just think, a rapper with millions of dollars was afraid to talk about the topic because he understood the stigma, discrimination, and costs that come with it.

I have $20 to my name and no sign of income in the near future, so there’s not much to lose. I share publicly because reading and hearing other people talk about these hard conversations has helped me not feel so alone.

If you don’t have suicide ideations or if you’ve never felt the urge to die by suicide, much of this won’t make sense to you. It will make you uncomfortable. It is heavy, especially if you’ve lost someone or have attempted it yourself. Feel free to log off now for your own safety and self-care.

I’ll end this one here and continue in the next video with some reasons why people might feel inclined to take their own lives. If you are struggling with suicide ideations, please reach out to someone for help.

Until next time, in solidarity.