On August 30, 2021, Jonathan Singer, PhD, LCSW, announced his resignation from the presidency of the American Association of Suicidology. At his request, I posted his resignation letter here in order to make the letter accessible to as many people as possible. On Sept. 14, he asked me to remove the letter, and I did. […]
Update 8/18/21: AAS posted a response today to the letter below. You can find their response here. The American Association of Suicidology has been through a lot of turmoil. Earlier this summer, the national non-profit fired its executive director and didn’t tell any of its members until somebody else posted about it on Twitter […]
“If only I could go to sleep forever.” “I want to die.” “I wish I’d never been born.” Do you ever have thoughts like these, and you do not want to kill yourself? Many people do. They want their life to end, but they don’t want to end their life. If you’re one of those […]
In a week when two celebrities, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, died by suicide within days of each other, so did hundreds of other people in the U.S. One of them was named Flinn, a classmate of mine in high school. On Flinn’s public Facebook page, an outpouring of sympathetic posts, one after the other, […]
Many of this site’s readers send me angry emails or texts. They post challenging comments. Some are so passionately opposed to suicide prevention that they resort to harassment. I have received threatening missives and phone calls from numerous people. Some urge me to kill myself. A common argument is that people should be free to […]
The popular image of someone who is in danger of suicide goes like this: A person has suicidal thoughts. It’s a crisis. The person gets help, and the crisis resolves within days or weeks. That’s the popular image, and thankfully it does happen for many people. But for others, suicidal thoughts do not go away. […]
People in the suicide prevention field discourage the use of the term “committed suicide.” The verb “commit” (when followed by an act) is generally reserved for actions that many people view as sinful or immoral. Someone commits burglary, or murder, or rape, or perjury, or adultery, or crime – or something else bad. Suicide itself […]
A man’s wife dies by suicide over the weekend. That Monday, he calls her therapist. The husband, in a joint session with his wife, has met the therapist before. “Hi Frank, I thought you would want to know my wife killed herself,” the man says through his sobs. What can – and should – the […]
I advise my students to ask their suicidal clients, “What stops you? What stops you from killing yourself?” Some are horrified. They see this almost as a dare, as if they are saying to a hurting, suicidal person, If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have done it already. What stops you? To […]
I don’t want to encourage people to kill themselves. I also don’t want to give advice on ways to die by suicide, or to advertise the supposed virtues of suicide. Can you blame me? Some people do blame me. Hundreds of people have submitted to this website comments that could be construed as pro-suicide. And […]
People who die in tornadoes are so selfish. They have people who love them, people who will be hurt terribly if they die. Yet they die anyway. People who die in tornadoes are thinking only of themselves. They take the easy way out when they refuse to overcome the storm. They don’t care that their […]
When you come to me for help, I want to help you. I hope you will let me. I cannot know your secrets without your words. I hope you will tell me. Tell me, please, your thoughts of suicide. You might feel scared to tell me When I ask you if you are thinking of suicide. I […]
The grief, loss, and bewilderment following the suicide of a loved one can be overwhelming. Many reactions are common, ranging from everything from shock to anger to self blame to considering suicide for yourself. There are questions, so many questions. “Why?” “What if…?” “What could I have done?” And there are few, if any answers. […]
You are walking with your best friend and she steps into the street without looking, forcing a car to swerve around her. You say, “Oh my God, you almost got killed,” and she says, “It wouldn’t matter anyway if I were dead.” Your son is home from college for spring break and has barely left his room. […]