It is likely that the majority of us will go through life without ever seeing a person die. Most of us will not watch that last breath, see that last look, feel a hand transition from warm to cold, or hear a heart rate monitor go from a steady beep to the lifeless flat line. What most of us will hear, however, is someone colloquially using the phrase "I'm going kill myself" or "kill me now." I live in a house of 12 twenty-something girls with synced cycles, exam schedules, and social lives. The things that we would "kill ourselves" for range from not getting a piece of bacon on a hungover morning to two exams in a 24 hour period to being locked out of our house for, god forbid, twenty minutes. Believe me, I am guilty of using this phrase in every single inappropriate manner you could imagine. And I don't know why nobody has told me to shut the hell up yet. It is ignorant, and it is offensive.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 38,364 lives were lost to suicide in 2010. This means that a suicide occurred every 13.7 minutes, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death in America.
If you take a top-ten killer of Americans and treat it the same way people treat this phrase, you would probably receive a well-deserved punch to the face.
Two exams tomorrow? "Ugh, give me Cancer."
No bacon to cure your hangover? "AIDS me, please"
Death is not a joke. Depression is not informal. Every time you say "I'm gonna kill myself" in a casual manner, you may be twisting the knife in someone's depression, you may be giving them the inspiration they need to finally pull the trigger, tie the noose, or swallow the pill. What this does not mean is that things cannot be terrible, and you cant complain, but it means that lightheartedly threatening to kill yourself is absolutely, always, without a doubt, inappropriate. By doing so, you make light of someone's disease; perhaps of someone's deepest, darkest wish, and you contribute to the stigma.
Mental health is severely stigmatized in our society. If double texting someone makes you "crazy" in our culture, then imagine the labels someone would get for revealing that they are stuck in a dark place. 80% of the people who seek treatment for depression are treated successfully. Society needs to make them proud to be brave enough and strong enough to seek treatment, and to eradicate the shame that comes with this disease. There is no shame in Cancer, heart disease, or stroke, and depression and suicide should be treated equally.
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