Overcoming Fear Together

By Barb Gay, MA, Executive Director, Area Substance Abuse Council, Inc., Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Member, Suicide Attempt Survivor Task Force, National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention

Although the field of suicide prevention has made enormous strides in recognizing the contributionsof people with lived experience, it has not totally overcome the fear of engaging suicide attempt survivors in their own recovery as well as in efforts to prevent suicide and improve the systems that help people recover. Attempt survivors are still often described as fragile and unstable—as people who need to be protected from themselves. Far too often, this “protection” takes the form of silence.

I experienced this silence after surviving my own suicide attempts. It sent a clear message that I should not talk about my attempt. It left me afraid, lonely, and isolated. Yet my experience also taught me that suicide attempts can be prevented and that people who attempt suicide can and do recover. I used this knowledge in my work. But I did not share my personal experience with suicide for more than 25 years, because I was afraid that that I would lose credibility and that people might see me as weak, unstable, or unprofessional. This fear also kept me from talking about what I had accomplished and how strong I was. It kept me from sharing my knowledge about how to help people see alternatives to suicide as well as how care should be provided after someone attempts suicide.

Silence sends the wrong message—a message that runs counter to what we know about preventing suicide. We know that people should not be afraid to ask for help if they are experiencing a suicidal crisis. We know that both lay people and professionals should not be afraid to directly ask a family member, friend, or client if he or she is having suicidal thoughts. We need to believe in the messages of hope and recovery that we promote. Engaging people with lived experience in our work can help us better understand how to prevent suicide and to help people who have attempted suicide find hope, rekindle a desire to live, and recover.

Attempt survivors have much to contribute across the entire spectrum of prevention and treatment activities. We can help create prevention messages that will resonate with people at risk for suicide. We can help combat the misconception that talking with someone about suicide will cause harm. We can help clinicians learn to talk about the attempt experience in ways that promote recovery rather than risk and help them understand how the clinical and therapeutic environment can be made supportive of recovery. And we can help other attempt survivors reintegrate with their families, their jobs, and their communities.

The field of suicide prevention needs to engage people with lived experience. We should be represented on suicide prevention coalitions, advisory groups, speaker panels, planning groups, and the boards of behavioral health organizations. Our experience is not just one of risk, but of recovery. And what we have learned from these experiences can help others make this journey.

Resources

Engaging Suicide Attempt Survivors: A SPARK Talk by Barb Gay

The Way Forward: Pathways to Hope, Recovery, and Wellness with Insights from Lived Experience – Suicide Attempt Survivors Task Force, National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention

This post has been cross-posted on the Suicide Prevention Resource Center site.

“Lighting the Way Forward”: The National Summit on Lived Experience in Suicide Prevention

By Eduardo Vega and John Draper, Suicide Attempt Survivors Task Force co-leads, and David Covington, Zero Suicide Advisory Group co-lead, National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention

On March 5-6, a landmark meeting occurred between two groups of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance). Members of the Suicide Attempt Survivors Task Force (SAS TF) met with leaders of the Zero Suicide Advisory Group (ZSAG) to discuss, in detail, how the values, insight, and expertise of people with lived experience of suicide can create better supports and services to reduce suicide for those in clinical care. Held in San Francisco through the support of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline), the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Summit on Lived Experience in Suicide Prevention may be the first time in history that a major national care initiative such as Zero Suicide has engaged with people ‘who have been there’ to strategize directions for fostering healthier communities and preventing suicide death.

The Summit involved leadership from the Action Alliance’s Executive Committee and Suicide Attempt Survivors Task Force, including John Draper and Eduardo Vega, and the Zero Suicide Advisory Group, including David Covington, CEO & President of Crisis Access, LLC, and Becky Stoll, Vice President for Crisis and Disaster Management, Centerstone of America. Members of the SAS TF from around the nation participated actively throughout the Summit. Reflecting the Summit’s significance and importance, Richard McKeon, SAMHSA’s Suicide Prevention Branch Chief, Jerry Reed, Director of SPRC, and Sally Spencer-Thomas, AAS board member and director of the innovative Carson J. Spencer Foundation, were also active participants.

The meeting of these two groups was one of intense dialogue and progress, and a true spirit of mutual interest was fostered through discussion of each other’s work.  As Vega, co-lead for the SAS TF pointed out, “Today we are a team. We are finding ways to support each other’s efforts and bringing our energies and values into alignment. In doing so, we are radically changing thinking about suicide prevention, setting the stage for innovation that brings the expertise of attempt survivors into focus with that of our healthcare providers.”

A major focus of the meeting was a pivotal technical document “The Way Forward”, soon to be released by the SAS TF, which lays out recommendations for policies, practices, and programs to support people experiencing suicidal thoughts and feelings and for the engagement of people with this ‘lived expertise’ in services and systems change. This document, in development for over two years by SAS TF members, builds on the 2012 National Strategy on Suicide Prevention and provides a core values framework that advances the conversation.  Bringing its recommendations into focus with the priorities of Zero Suicide is a bold concrete step for change in the way services and providers think about prevention of suicide. As Covington, co-lead of the ZSAG, remarked, “Wherever Zero Suicide is developed, we need lived expertise to be ‘baked in, not bolted on’ to the project.”

Draper, director of the Lifeline, who brings his leadership to both the SAS TF and ZSAG, outlined the value of the collaboration directly: "'Zero Suicide' is a goal that we can aspire to only if clinicians and persons who have a history of suicidal thoughts or actions collaborate in ways that enable choice, trust, and shared responsibility. This meeting was a perfect model for the kind of collaboration that will build connectedness, hope, and meaning for persons seeking help for suicidal thoughts in clinical systems of care."

In addition to strategic directions for collaboration and support, summit attendees discussed crucial issues related to the field of suicide prevention, including: risk, community intervention practices, stigma and prejudice, and other historical challenges to progress. For example, although mental health service providers have developed extensive dialogue with their service ‘consumers’ over many years, and lived expertise in the area has resulted in many new and transformed programs, the suicide prevention community has historically had very limited dialogue with people with lived experience of suicidality. This history of disengagement was broached openly.

In the words of Leah Harris, communications director for the National Empowerment Center, who is also on both the SAS TF and ZSAG: “After my suicide attempts, I experienced re-traumatizing treatments from systems that were supposed to help me. For years, I also felt the attempt survivor’s voice was not valued in suicide prevention. But that is changing. Today, we built trust, and a lot of healing took place."