It’s sad…frightening…unnerving..& a huge dose of reality. But it’s powerful. A visual – not just numbers…not statistics…but of faces – the brightest among us – of just some of the student athletes from high school to college, we’ve lost in recent years to suicide.
I want to thank our friends at @morgansmessage for sharing the image and the second slide, the names of all those pictured, because they’re not just stats. They’re sons, daughters, cousins, aunts and uncles, great friends and teammates.
Not long ago I shared my sadness and frustration that no media (local, regional or national) when it was revealed that Robert Martin of Binghamton Lacrosse was lost to suicide, tied his story together with that of Katie Meyer of Stanford – another D1 goalie, lost to suicide, less than a month prior.
You gotta ask how and why…and there are many reasons I won’t rehash here. But what I will say is how proud I am of so many I saw yesterday – everyday advocates to large non profits, share this image.
It’s on us…all of us…to scream these trends from the rafters until there’s change and there are more resources – because clearly we aren’t getting the help from the outside. SM doesn’t help us educate wide either, with their tactics. Some schools/institutions seem afraid to even use the word suicide – even after the family has shared.
What about overdose deaths? About losses of other students to these “deaths of despair”? Trauma, addiction, mental health, suicide, overdose – all cousins living in the same house. Nervous system deregulation from life’s challenging events, tech, overstimulation, demands, expectations, overlayed on our genetic wiring and how we try to cope with that pain (or sadly how it can create those impulse error messages seemingly “out of nowhere”.
This is a trend, caused by so many changes in our world in the last 20 plus years. But it’s a trend we must name and share, especially when the families give us the gift of their vulnerability – to help others.
In the last month, I’ve reached out to/connected with 7 different parents with children lost to suicide. There is a groundswell of wanting to work together. It’s on us to hold hands.
We gotta be one team.
