Rescuing Our Own
On this week’s “The Things We All Carry” podcast, I said something that I feel compelled to qualify. I stated “You will not find the suicide hotline on my website.” This may not sit well with some folks when spoken by a mental health advocate, but let me explain. I don’t hate the suicide prevention hotline. My problem is not with that phone number or the people on the other end. They are great. They were carrying this torch long before the rest of us got here and fill a vital role in suicide prevention. What I hate is that we let our people get to a point where they might feel compelled to use it. The hotline has helped a lot of people but this platform is about proactive engagement and the elimination of reactive policy. If someone gets to the point where they need to make that call, we have already failed them 100 times over. It is for people in crisis and crisis comes from lack of maintenance. It is the bandaid resolution for the administrative indifference that I speak out against. It is a symbol of the failures to acknowledge the problem, take responsibility for it, proactively solve it, and the desire to shunt all of that responsibility onto someone else. The proof is on the bathroom wall of every fire station and ambulance service in the country.
I am sure the folks that put that hotline branded flyer up on the bathroom wall did so with the best of intentions but now, hidden away from public eyes, it is a symbol of stigma. There it hangs with fraying, yellowing edges and is now as much a part of the wall as the wall itself. You don’t even see it anymore. Why is it hidden away in the bathroom, anyway? Because the subject is still taboo. Something as simple as placement encodes stigma. It says “this is private and should be kept private.” It whispers “nobody needs to know.” These are our brothers and sisters! Everybody needs to know so we can wrap our arms around them.
Setting aside the exception that I take with ad placement, the number one thing that I hate about that flyer is that it puts the onus on the victim to reach out for help and is wholly reliant on the person suffering to recognize the predicament that they are in, and then call and talk to a stranger. That’s a terrible gamble. When I was in the weeds, I didn’t even know it. I was going through the motions, exhausted, angry, and numb. It took someone close to me to recognize the warning signs and say something. And, if I had recognized it, I damn sure wasn’t in the head space to call and talk to a stranger about it.
“We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable before quiet discomfort turns to suicidal desperation.”
There is value in the ability to talk to someone discreetly for those who would not talk to someone close to them, but the point of this platform is to change our approach. We call ourselves a “brotherhood” and as such, we should act like one. Right now, the boat is too far from the dock. We have gotten better but there is still a large swath of our ranks who still bottle up the feelings of burnout, PTSD, depression and suicidal thoughts. There are still too many among us that are hesitant to talk about it, and worse, scared to ask about it. If you see your brethren struggling, you’ve got to speak up. You’ve got to check in. You’ve got to be vulnerable with others so that they know that they can be that way with you. If someone is hurting, you’ve got to go get them and drag them back and help them get on the path to recovery, whatever that may look like for them. Depression and suicidality is a lonely state, and even if the stigma is dissipating, the perception remains. We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable before quiet discomfort turns to suicidal desperation.
The more we talk about it, the more those arbitrary signs and symptoms in text books develop a face with meaning, and the easier it is to recognize them in ourselves and others. So go get your brothers and sisters. Tell your story. Listen to theirs, and let’s start rescuing our own before they are in crisis.
If you are in crisis and that hotline is the most comfortable place for you to talk, then call it! However, there are first responder specific resources available such as Safe Call Now, that in my humble opinion, are more suited to our purposes. Or, you can head over to the Project Hope: EMS Facebook page and join one of the chats. There is almost always someone there. Even if you don’t know the person on the other end, you can find comfort in knowing that you are united by the commonality of doing the same job and are likely suffering from the same things that the person on the other end has suffered and now come out on the other side. It’s a great resource that is shedding light into darkness, which is EXACTLY what this page is about.