What’s The Point of Suicide Signs?
Recently, blue and yellow signs appeared on one of the freeway bridges near my house. Since I was always driving when I passed them, I was curious as to what they were and why they’d suddenly appeared. This weekend, my daughter enlightened me.
Apparently, some bureaucrat who is utterly clueless about mental health, depression and suicide thought it would be a great way to prevent people from committing suicide by jumping off bridges. Seriously?
How many potential suicides are going to stop and read a sign, think twice about what they’re doing, and call the suicide hotline number listed on the sign? I doubt this ridiculous waste of taxpayers’ money was even run by a mental health professional or two.
Who Reads Before They Jump?
If someone is despondent enough to walk out on a bridge high enough to give them a reasonable
chance of success in putting an end to their pain, I hardly think they’re going to stop long enough to read a sign, much less dial a number. The time for passive intervention has long passed by the time they’re standing on the bridge. If you ask me, it’s about as insensitive and useless as telling that person “either suck it up and act normal or get help, but don’t leave your blood and guts on public property so our first responders have to waste their precious time on someone who wouldn’t even try.”
There’s a pretty good chance this person has been doing their best to “suck it up” for a very long time, and has reached the end of their personal well of strength to even keep putting one foot in front of the other, much less trying to act like their life is normal, whatever that might be besides a setting on the washing machine. We might as well put up signs saying “no jumping”. If you ask me, they’ll do about as much good as the fancy blue and yellow ones with all their wonderful information. Either way, the people who really need them are going to ignore them and follow their own instincts, which may indeed stop their pain, but, though they may not believe it, will cause long-lasting pain for those they leave behind.
Human Contact, Not Signs
When I’ve spoken to people who experience depression and suicidal thoughts first-hand, the common thread which helps them through is knowing without a doubt that someone really does care, and more, is willing to spend time with them without expectations. Successful suicides happen too often when a person is in a deep, dark place created by their own mind. They believe to the depths of their soul that everyone will be better off without them. They can’t see how anyone could care for them, as broken and abnormal as they feel they are.
The progress society thinks it’s making in regard to suicide, mental health, and depression is, in my opinion, a smoke screen of their own devising. Even the military stopped using the phrase “a permanent solution to a temporary problem” after they lost a fairly high ranking officer to suicide. But it left their vocabulary only temporarily. They’ve brought it back again in all its tarnished glory, and I believe it does more harm than good. The truth is, everyone wants to sweep the subject under the rug for someone, anyone else to deal with. They don’t want to get their hands dirty dealing with a act they consider reprehensible and selfish.
Do Your Research
It all goes back to believing what we’re taught to believe rather than opening the book or Google and 
trying to understand something from a fact-based position rather than an emotional one. Yet suicide is on the rise. If it were cancer or diabetes, or Alzheimer’s, we’d see campaigns and buckets of money thrown at finding a cure, or at least a solution. But because it’s a mental issue and not visible under a microscope; because so many have been taught to believe that ending one’s own life is a sin, it’s the red-headed stepchild of health and welfare.
I can understand why my own family was happy to widen the rift that appeared with my mother’s death, and grew so large as to be un-navigable when my father chose a similar fate. They believed what they’d been taught, and acted instinctively. Although to be honest, had I been needy and sad, wallowing in my own misery, they might have taken pity on me and allowed me back into the fold, but at what cost to me and my daughters? Misery may love company, but why choose misery when we can choose happy.
But someone who has reached the point where suicide is a viable option has lost the strength or maybe the ability to make that choice. They have way too far to climb to get from where they are to a semi-happy place. Even the effort to move from abjectly miserable to slightly less miserable is beyond their capabilities—without the help of someone who sincerely cares and is willing to reach into the chasm and pull them up at least part of the way.
The Solution is in Caring
Once again, I’m reminded of the immortal words of Dr. Seuss.
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not!
Listen carefully now. Putting up signs on bridges is not helping. It’s a cop-out intended to absolve ourselves of responsibility. Until each and every one of us stops hiding behind signs and bureaucrats, suicide rates will continue their deadly rise. More and more of us will be blind-sided when someone we love dies believing their family and friends would be better off without them. Even worse, more of us will be left wondering why we, our kids, our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins—why we weren’t enough reason for them to stay around. Why they will miss out on the first steps, the graduations, the weddings—all the things which bring joy to our lives.
Do you truly want to help? Get off your phone. Come out from behind the artificial world you enter through your computer, tablet, or smart phone. Pay attention to who hasn’t been showing up lately; who has declined every invitation, or missed all the regular gatherings. Show up at their door and take them to the park or out for coffee, or anything that gets them out of the house and the dark, heavy hole they’re hiding in. And listen. Just listen. Don’t judge, don’t try to fix them. Just listen. Trust me. You will be very glad you made the effort and took the time.
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, Virtual Assistant and advocate for cats, mental health, depression, and suicide. Sheri believes in the Laws 
of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. She specializes in creating content that helps entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author.
Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming release of “Life Torn Asunder: Rebuilding After Suicide”.
