I am a Suicide Survivor.
and it is time to stop hiding it.
Hello Beautiful human,
This week, I am writing to you from a place of deep sorrow and rage. We lost a beautiful member of this community this week and upon learning of her death, part of me shattered.
Last night, as I wept into a container of chocolate frosting and buried myself in blankets and deep pressure therapy, I thought a lot about the weight I carry each day — the good I try to do — and how futile it often feels in moments like these.
This morning, hungover from my sugar binge and exhausted from hours of crying, I set out to find someone to be with me in it — to join me in this dark place, if only for a minute or two. Knowing exactly who to call, a blessing I do not take lightly since it is a privilege that I rarely had in my younger years, I called my best friend who is currently living abroad in Italy. I proceeded to scream for the next half an hour with only her kind ear and ever-accepting love as witnesses.
~
I screamed about big tech and its greedy commodification of human beings.
I screamed about broken political systems and how destructive the Electoral College is.
I screamed about being a woman and feeling as if it is mandatory to be liked by others in order to survive in this world.
And most of all… most of all, I screamed about how we are living through a suicide epidemic, one in which a person dies from suicide every forty seconds, but we still cannot even write those words in our memorials about them. We still can’t even acknowledge the bravery of these individuals who fought their minds tirelessly and lost their lives to these cunning and deadly disorders while living in a world that never evolves to alleviate their consequences.
~
I got off the phone to revise an op-ed with my new boss at Harvard. It felt good to write with purpose – to write with an intention to change the broken social media ecosystem and harness it for public mental health.
As we finished our call, she kindly asked me if I meant to include “suicide survivor” in my amended bio or if that was solely to be included in the pitch. She was right to ask. The words “suicide survivor” have immeasurable consequences professionally.
But today, I will stop hiding from those repercussions. Today, bravely or perhaps naively, I will include them proudly. Yes. I will include them and I say this:
Suicide is not a bad word. Nor is mental illness.
We must stop using “died suddenly” and other euphemisms in place of “suicide” and “mental illness” if we ever want to change the trajectory of the suicide epidemic.
Now, please do not misconstrue my commitment to using honest words as a denial of the tragedy and sorrow they hold. I am not saying that at all.
What I am saying is this —
The world needs to catch up and realize that to live with a serious mental illness is nothing short of being completely badass.
Yes — to live with a mind hell-bent on ending itself and make it through the day in a society whose broken systems punish instead of alleviate – that is pure warriorhood.
~
The work we have to do to tackle the suicide epidemic and change society’s perception of mental illness is mighty and I don’t have all the answers. Today, in fact, all I have are these words and my sorrow and rage.
But they will fuel me forward. They will help me ride the wave of stigma and denial that our world spews at us continually. They will ignite my passion as I cry from my couch and scream this oh-so-needed and under-respected truth from the rooftops:
There is no shame in mental illness.
There is only shame in stigmatizing it.
And until we, as a society, use the very words suicide and mental illness, we are part of the problem.
Serious mental illness and suicide are not unmentionable. The people who live with serious mental illness and die by suicide are not unmentionable. And until we make this truth abundantly clear, the tragedy of this epidemic will continue.
Yes, until this society wakes up and uses the honest words of our brave fight for the heroism of our existence, nothing will change.
~
But as we, my beloved community, fight for that change, I promise that I will be here using them loudly. I will be here, showing up, using them proudly.
I will say — bravely or perhaps naively — for all of us:
I am a suicide survivor. I am not ashamed. And your discomfort upon hearing that, society, is not my work.
It is yours.
We — those of us in the trenches of mental illness,
We live with minds hellbent on ending us.
We live in a world with systems structured to break us.
And every single day, we survive.
Every single day, we survive.
We breathe and we fight our way forward and it is your work, society, to realize that that is heroic, even if our memorials dare not yet proclaim such irrevocable truth.
In memoriam of our community member, please consider donating to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline today or her favorite rescue nonprofit, Foster Parrots.
Probably Anxious is an entirely reader-supported publication. Being a paid subscriber makes my work possible and allows me to maintain the integrity of this space with no ads. I am deeply grateful for your support. If you are able, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today.
A paid subscription costs $6 a month or $60 a year.
Paid Subscriber Benefits Include:
Access to The Patient is In — a podcast exploring serious mental illness through the lens of those affected. You can listen to the most recent episode where I interview my Dad about his experiences with my serious mental illness here.
Access to Curiosity with Kate — This is a short-form podcast format where I answer your questions about navigating life with serious mental illness. The most recent episode where I share my full mental illness story is here.
Podcast Transcriptions/Guides
To better support all learning styles, there will be a transcription of each podcast made available so you can read the podcast conversations if you are interested and when applicable, an accompanying guide that highlights key takeaways and answers to your questions.
The Final Chapters of my inaugural memoir, Maura + Me
To preserve my own well-being, the remaining chapters will be delivered at whatever cadence my mental health allows. Last year, I wrote 28 chapters and shared them weekly with you all in installments. Though I am so proud that I was able to tackle almost my entire book in that manner, that cadence is no longer sustainable so I appreciate your patience as I find a pace that is a bit more manageable. If you are interested in reading the earlier chapters, you can find all of them here.
PLEASE KNOW: I am not here to add more barriers of access to the already gatekept world of mental illness and mental healthcare whatsoever. I am here to do the opposite so please do not think twice about it and send an email to hi@katespeer.com with the words ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Please be sure to put ‘subscribe’ in the subject line so I don’t miss it!
I will (maybe 🙃 ) be back with a more traditional newsletter format next week. In the meantime, let’s….
NOURISH
We made it through the 10 darkest weeks of the year!
This fact alone was enough to brighten the week because the world already did it for us. Here we come, daylight in the evening! Yipee!!!
Eeyore loves you and has a very important reminder:
New Favorites to Enjoy
New Favorite TV Show — Royal Pains on Netflix
This show is everything I want in a TV family — a mix of humor, kindness, romance, sibling squabbles, and shenanigans. It’s about a young doctor who reluctantly agrees to practice concierge medicine for the wealthy elite in The Hamptons and all the adventures he has balancing his integrity with his patients’ wild entitlement and lifestyles along the way.
New Favorite Instagram Account — The New Happy
The New Happy is a project that uses art to teach the science of happiness. As a lifelong visual learner, it feeds my soul. I also find myself refreshingly grounded after scrolling through a few posts. If you need a momentary break, take a moment to enjoy this gallery of posts.
New Book — Remarkably Bright Creatures
I know I am late to the party on this one but Shelby Van Pelt wrote a gift of a book and an extra nudge to read it is well deserved. This book is about the unexpected friendship between a widow and an octopus. I know that sounds genuinely wild but truly, this book is genius as it explores grief, friendship, and how to navigate to loss.
Question of the Week
What question takes your mind off of things? Is there a philosophical question you keep contemplating? Or how about a funny question that activates the imagination and brings a smile to your face? Or maybe a question as simple as ‘What is the right way to hang toilet paper?’ But really, what is the right way?
Yup, I’m cheating a bit this week here. Rather, I’m harnessing our beautiful community to build it forward.
Please drop your questions in the comment section and stay tuned for their debut as “question of the week” in the months to come.
Okey, that’s it from me for now. As I said on Instagram and will say every day hereafter, I love you.
I know I do not know you but really — truly — I love you and I am so glad you are here with me.
Wishing you a kind rest of your day and a gentle end to the week before a weekend that honors you as you want it to.
Kindly,
Kate
Kate this was so beautifully written and so well timed for my receiving of it. This month marks 10 years as a suicide survivor. I used to be so ashamed of it when people would find out. I remember telling my now husband when we were first seeing each other, drunkenly in his living room, after sharing raw story after raw story, and knowing the time was right, but apologetic because it’ was ‘heavy and weird’. He responded with “my best friend killed himself, why would I ever think that’s weird”. Now, that’s a fucking terrible thing to bond over or have in common, but for once I knew someone who understood this epidemic wholly. For once I knew I could be open and honest about my mental state with someone and be heard, be understood. We had known each other for years prior and I never knew about his friend. He never knew about my hospitalization. I highly attribute this to the stigma around talking about suicide.
We need to fight this fight! We need to be able to speak about these moment with each other. We need to know others understand. We need to feel seen. We need to be heard. Lives are at stake. We need more Kate’s in this world - because boy are we lucky to have you here with us still, fighting tooth and nail for us all.
Thank you for those words. I tried to end myself twice, the first time I was 15 and I took a whole bottle of aspirin because I remember being told if I did that I would die. I woke up the next day with a headache. I accepted. I wasn’t gonna die right then When I was 21 I was battling a whole bunch of demons and I was still living on Guam so I took a bunch of Valium and a bottle of vodka with the idea that I would end myself at a beautiful beach, peaceful, restful obviously that did not happen, I woke up again to sunrise that was so rose and gold and ocean blue that it made me realize I may be broken but there is beauty in broken and I can survive. I always tell everybody if I’m talking about suicide, I definitely have issues but if I ever stop talking about suicide, if I become silent, that’s what I know I’m at the end and I need to do something to get me out of this terrible disease. Obviously I know it will never end, but I always remembered that sunrise. I always remember I can find beauty in broken.