September is Suicide Prevention Month, but this year, the subject feels different to me.
This summer, my family lost a family friend to suicide. Since then, I have found myself thinking about suicide in a way I never had before. It is different when it is no longer something you simply hear about or read about. It becomes a person you knew. Someone your family cared about.
There are so many things that come after a loss like that. There is sadness, of course, but there are also questions. You wonder what someone was feeling when no one else was around. You wonder how much they were carrying. You wonder if they knew how many people loved them. And even though you know there may never be an answer, you find yourself wondering if there was something someone could have noticed or something someone could have said that might have changed things.
I don’t think there is one simple answer to those questions. Suicide is complicated, and I don’t believe it is fair to put the responsibility of someone’s life on one conversation, one person, or one missed warning sign. But losing someone this way has made me think a lot about what we can do while people we love are still here. It has made me think about how often we assume someone is okay simply because they look okay.
I know what it feels like to be the person who looks okay when things aren’t okay.
There have been times in my own life when I was struggling much more than the people around me realized. From the outside, I was doing all the things I have always done. I was going to class. I was participating in my sports. I was spending time with friends. I was laughing. I was making plans. If someone had looked at my life from the outside, they probably would not have immediately thought I was having a hard time.
But I was.
What those experiences taught me is that you cannot always tell how someone is doing by looking at them.
Sometimes the person who is struggling is the person who is still showing up.
Sometimes it is the person sitting next to you in class. Sometimes it is your teammate who is laughing with everyone at practice. Sometimes it is your roommate who tells you they are just tired. Sometimes it is the friend who is always checking on everyone else but never talks about themselves.
And sometimes, it is you.
For a long time, I thought I was supposed to be able to handle everything on my own. I thought needing help meant I wasn’t strong enough. I thought I needed to have a good enough reason before I was allowed to admit I wasn’t okay. I have learned slowly that none of those things are actually true.
Some of the people who have made the biggest difference in my life were not people who had some perfect answer for what I was going through. They didn’t magically make my problems disappear. They didn’t always know exactly what to say.
They stayed.
They checked on me. They listened. They let me cry. They noticed when something seemed off. They reminded me that I was more than whatever I was struggling with at the moment. Most importantly, they made me feel like I didn’t have to carry everything by myself.
That is what I think about when I think about suicide prevention now.
I used to imagine suicide prevention as something much bigger and more dramatic. I thought it meant knowing exactly what to say when someone was in crisis. I thought it meant being able to recognize the obvious signs that someone was in danger.
Now I think it can be much simpler than that.
It can be sending a text.
It can be sitting in someone’s room when they don’t want to be alone.
It can be asking your friend how they are actually doing.
It can be noticing that someone hasn’t been themselves lately and checking in instead of assuming they will come to you when they need help.
It can be remembering something someone told you weeks ago and asking about it again.
It can be staying.
And sometimes it means recognizing that something is bigger than what you can handle alone and helping that person find professional support.
I think sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to save the people we love. You can love someone deeply and still not know how to help them. Getting someone else involved is not failing them. It is caring enough to make sure they have more support than just you.
College is a place where this matters more than we sometimes realize. We are all going through so much at once. And sometimes, you can feel completely alone while being surrounded by people.
That is why I think connection matters so much. The people we surround ourselves with often become our strongest support systems during the hardest times in our lives. A teammate can notice something is wrong. A roommate can recognize when you haven’t left the room. A professor can notice when you begin missing classes. A coach can ask a question you didn’t realize you needed someone to ask.
I know because people have done that for me.
There have been people who have seen me when I didn’t really want to be seen. People who cared about me during seasons when I wasn’t the easiest version of myself to be around. People who have reminded me that my life is bigger than whatever I was experiencing at the time.
I don’t know if they realized how much those moments mattered. Maybe they thought they were just checking on a friend. Maybe they thought they were just sitting with me.
But I remember.
And I think that is something we forget. We may never know which of our small actions becomes a big moment in someone else’s life.
Losing our family friend has made me realize that I don’t want to wait for people to look like they need help before I check on them. I don’t want to assume that someone is okay because they are smiling. I don’t want to only ask how someone is doing when something has already gone wrong.
I want checking in to be normal. I want asking for help to become normal. I want telling someone you aren’t okay to feel less scary. And I want people to know that they don’t have to have everything figured out before they deserve support.
I wish I could change what happened to our family friend. I wish I could know what they needed in that moment. I wish I could go back and somehow make sure they knew how much they mattered.
I can’t.
But I can let losing them change the way I show up for the people who are still here. I can ask the extra question. I can listen longer. I can take someone’s pain seriously. I can remind people that asking for help isn’t a weakness. And I can let the people in my own life continue to remind me of those things, too.
Because I don’t think suicide prevention is about one person being responsible for saving another person. I think it is about creating a world where people don’t feel like they have to suffer completely alone.
It is about conversations, connection, noticing, and staying. Sometimes it is about reminding someone of something they cannot see in themselves yet: that their story isn’t over.
If you are struggling, you don’t have to wait until things become unbearable before asking for help. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by calling or texting 988. It is free and confidential, and you can also contact 988 if you are worried about someone else.
Boom ShaKaLaka ❤️
We love and miss you!! You will forever be remembered for your contagious smile and energy.