Why talking about suicide reduces stigma and saves lives

Stigma surrounding suicide’s causes and effects

Society has long associated the causes and effects of suicide with negative stereotypes. As a result, people affected by suicide commonly experience adverse reactions from others, avoidance, and nonaffirming treatment from the world around them.

Individuals affected by this negativity often feel stigma. They avoid discussing the topic of suicide, shutting down due to feelings of shame.

However, when individuals can discuss suicide openly, the discussions help to normalize the idea of seeking mental health treatment and addressing suicide’s myths, which are important actions in destigmatizing suicide. These actions begin with education around suicide’s causes and effective techniques to prevent it.¹
 

Reducing stigma by talking about suicide

“Talking about suicide openly is the key to reducing stigma and saving lives,” says Wendy Martinez Farmer, Regional Vice President of Sales, Carelon Behavioral Health. “Being open without sensationalizing suicide can encourage individuals to seek help.”

Martinez Farmer also emphasizes recognizing suicide as a complex tragedy that is the result of multiple factors. “Suicide is never an easy topic to discuss, but it is so important that we remove the stigma around it. There is growing evidence that addressing suicide directly and openly is key to saving lives. We need to remove stigma as a barrier to individuals getting the care they need.”

When individuals talk about suicide, not only does it reduce the stigma associated with suicide, but it also opens the door to individuals seeking help and discovering resources. Open discussions about suicide also allow individuals to rethink their opinions and share their story with others, understanding why suicide occurs and advocating for mental health awareness.²
 

Destigmatizing seeking help and treatment

The American Hospital Association recommends a few key best practices for organizations and care providers on how to destigmatize individuals seeking help and treatment:³

• Create awareness and improve understanding around the prevalence of behavioral health disorders. Awareness and understanding help to make individuals realize they are not alone, and that solutions are available to them.
• Encourage a culture of transparency in which individuals feel safe discussing behavioral health without fear of repercussions, so they can get the treatment they need.
• Improve care provider response to those experiencing behavioral health concerns.
• Eliminate questions and policies in the workplace that stigmatize seeking behavioral health treatment or resources.

988 and other initiatives

The launch of 988  has shown great promise in reducing stigma by increasing access to immediate support. Text and chat answer rates have trended upward considerably, with rates having reached 96% or higher in December 2022, compared with 24% for chats and 52% for texts from the previous year.⁴

Leadership-driven initiatives to eliminate stigma include The CEOs Against Stigma, a statewide campaign promoted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Massachusetts. The campaign is designed to reduce the negative impact of stigma in the workplace by encouraging organizations to face and talk openly about mental illness.⁵

I Will Listen, an antistigma initiative promoted by NAMI’s New York chapter, works to tear down myths and misconceptions about mental illness, with the goal of working towards a world free of stigma.⁶

All these initiatives and campaigns show great promise in terms of lessening the stigma associated with discussing suicide, in turn saving lives.