The Story of Suicide, Compassion, and Hope
Our life, the inkblot
I work in youth suicide prevention and am often asked, “why do you think so many kids are struggling?” This article is the first article in a series of essays about teen mental health.
In Utah, where I work and live, the leading cause of death for youth ages 10–17 is suicide. Suicide attempts and deaths have been increasing in our community and the increase cuts across demographic divisions.
There are many dedicated researchers who have contributed to our understanding of these trends, but I will not dispute nor defend any explanatory data.
This is because one thing I’ve realized in the work of suicide prevention is that understanding why anyone wants to die is often as mysterious to them as it is to any one else.
Projecting explanations onto data can distance us from the deepest human experiences–which, in this case, is the deepest pain possible for a living being.
When we explain another’s experience, en mass, we inadvertently create a “them” who is less than or flawed in some way. Judgment fills our minds and hearts with ways to fix the “others” that we believe we understand.
No one can fully understand or explain any one else’s experience.
Every story of suicide is a Story of One.
A story of unbearable burdens. A story of suffering. A story of loneliness. A story of indescribable and inescapable pain. There is no describing it, there is no knowing it, there is no understanding or explaining it.
One feels their way through a story that cannot be told; to any, one, else.
At the center of this story is one’s internal reality. No matter how much support surrounds a person in these moments of despair, one can feel isolated. No matter how much there is to hope for, one can feel hopeless.
Whether pain is “imagined” or “real,” it exists in one’s reality–setting expectations and limits on what can be thought, felt, known, and done…by any one.
This is not because a person is “broken” or “lacks determination” or is “unmotivated.” There is nothing lacking. Every one lives within the confines of a Story of One–a Life’s Story–whether the story is hopeless or hopeful.
One story is not “better” than another because no story can be any other.
Our life is an inkblot; scattered data, inputs, and experiences pass through the sense-making filter of our present awareness.
What do you see?
Is there a “right” answer to this question? Is it the same every time you look? Do the colors create new shapes that are unavailable without the color?
Our story-telling consciousness weaves a story; adding and removing color, connecting and disconnecting dots, dissolving and conjuring figures.
As the vast, infinite world passes through our interpretive lens and our stories shift to accommodate our current mood, current beliefs, expectations, biological and physiological changes, new circumstances…and a million other factors that we’ll just call “etc.”
We can often look again at the same bits of data (experiences) and imagine a completely new picture. What was once our greatest pain can become our greatest triumph. What was once our greatest triumph can become our greatest pain.
Memories take on a new life as they are brought into our current reality. Past experiences are not stable, they are interpreted in real time, every time.
The Story of One is The Story of Now. Informed by the past and future but not created by them. Today’s story of despair and desperation is tomorrow’s story of hope and healing.
Every story is open to another here and now to be re-told, re-claimed, or re-purposed.
No sees what any one else does.
Accepting and allowing any one’s reality, without dismissing or explaining it away, unlocks our healing power.
Compassion.
Love without conditions. Allowing any story to be: open, flexible, present.
Accepting every Story of One without sorting into “better than” or “like the others” or “like me!”
Offering full permission to be. Freedom from the need to fit into another story. Allowing one to be held as whole. To behold the whole being with present, full love.
Compassion opens one to inhabit their story. When one is allowed to be in their story, fully present, it can be seen for what it is. A story. The figures and colors, shapes and lines, are exposed.
Without being fixed or corrected or told how to be, one begins to notice. Awareness awakens, allowing a surrender of the illusion of things “as they are.”
One accepts their own story, without conditions…it’s just a story!
And slowly, step by step, one repurposes past pain, reimagines future potential, and reclaims inner freedom. From within The Story of One, The Story of Now.
Every story of hope is a Story of One.
A story of total freedom. A story of ease. A story of connection. A story of indescribable joy. There is no describing it, there is no knowing it, there is no understanding or explaining it.
One feels their way through a story that cannot be told; to any, one, else.
At the center of this story is one’s internal reality. No matter how isolated one may be, one may feel connected. No matter how broken the the world may seem, one can feel hope.
Whether hope is “imagined” or “real,” it exists in one’s reality–setting expectations and limits on what can be thought, felt, known, and done…by any one.
This is not because a person is “better” or “determined” or “motivated.” There is nothing special. Every one lives within the confines of a Story of One–a Life’s Story–whether the story is hopeless or hopeful.
One story is not “better” than another because no story can be any other.
Our life is an inkblot. Offering infinite potential from within our finite lens.
This post was originally published on my Substack, The Story of One, Every One.
