The AP’s Suicide Rule Is Inadequate

The AP Stylebook, which I lived by as a journalist, recently added a new rule for reporters and editors dealing with the topic of suicide. It’s not a bad set of guidelines, but it’s inadequate.

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The AP now advises the following:

Generally, AP does not cover suicides or suicide attempts, unless the person involved is a well-known figure or the circumstances are particularly unusual or publicly disruptive. Suicide stories, when written, should not go into detail on methods used. Avoid using committed suicide except in direct quotations from authorities. Alternate phrases include killed himself, took her own life or died by suicide.

The verb commit with suicide can imply a criminal act. Laws against suicide have been repealed in the United States and many other places.

Do not refer to an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Refer instead to an attempted suicide.

Medically assisted suicide is permitted in some states and countries. Advocacy groups call it death with dignity, but AP doesn’t use that phrase on its own. When referring to legislation whose name includes death with dignity or similar terms, just say the law allows the terminally ill to end their own lives unless the name itself of the legislation is at issue.

The language is all well and good, but it’s all about how to avoid libel and protect reputations of those affected. Important, for sure, but I believe we need to write about suicide in a way that captures what it truly is: the potentially fatal result of a ferocious disease. That disease is depression.

When someone dies of cancer and it’s deemed newsworthy, we say the person died of cancer. When writing about suicide, we should say they succumbed to depression.

That’s my personal opinion. I think saying it that way would further kill the stigma around suicide and raise public awareness of depression as a potentially deadly medical condition.

natural remedies for depression

Walk All Night Against Suicide

Update: I’ve set up my donations page. To donate, click here.

Though this blog is about dealing with the challenges we face, I started it to raise awareness and bust down stigmas around depression and suicide.

It’s time for me to take that fight to the next level.

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I’ve been inspired to do more by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which will hold an overnight walk in Boston June 27-28. My legs work almost as well as my typing fingers, so why not? Words can only do so much.

You can register or donate money to the cause through the organization’s website. I’ll be asking you for donations and walking in honor of my best friend and brother, Sean Marley, who died by suicide on November 15, 1996.

I’ve written a lot about Sean and the effect his death had on me. Having had my own battles with depression, I know how thin a line it is between hope and hopelessness. Though Sean couldn’t be saved, losing him forced me to confront many of the demons at the heart of my own infirmity. That made me stronger.

This event is bigger than me, bigger even than Sean. Every minute of every day, countless people suffer from depression. Once they slip far enough, suicidal instincts take over.

With more awareness, research and support programs, we can save more people. Not everyone, but maybe enough to make a difference in the world.

Money raised is well spent. The organization funds research, creates educational programs, advocates for public policy, and supports survivors of suicide loss.

During this fundraiser, participants will spend the entire night walking the streets of Boston. They will share stories and offer each other comfort and prayers. Each person will be strengthened by friends, family, and colleagues who donate to their cause.

This is an incredibly appropriate way for me to do my part.

Sean and I grew up on Revere Beach, just north of Boston, and we spent much of our young years walking that beach. Sometimes we drank there. Once we got caught up in a fight there. Often we sat on the wall, listening to rock ‘n’ roll from a portable cassette player. But mostly we walked on the sand, talking over the big questions of the day, sharing our hopes, dreams and fears and pushing toward the dawn.

Back then our walking feet gave us strength. May those feet come through again, this time for all who suffer from this insidious disease.

Rememberance Candles on Suicide Walk

Depressed Minds, Not Beaten Souls

In 2011, I was sobered by a report in USA Today that said 1 in 100 adults had planned their suicide in the year leading up to the article —  a statistic that didn’t surprise me, knowing what I do about depression.

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I’ve suffered a lot of depression in my day. I’m experiencing it right now. While I’ve never seriously considered ending it, I can easily see how someone in that state of mind could head in that direction.

From that 2011 report:

There’s a suicide every 15 minutes in the United States, and for every person who takes his or her own life there are many more who think about, plan or attempt suicide, according to a federal report released Thursday.

The analysis of 2008-09 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that … more than 2.2 million adults (1.0 percent) reported making suicide plans in the past year, and more than 1 million (0.5 percent) said they attempted suicide in the past year, according to the researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

I think I just got lucky. Or, more likely, my religious beliefs made suicide a line I wouldn’t cross. Instead, I dove head-first into a self-destructive existence, where I lived for my addictions.

Perhaps subconsciously, as I binged my way to 280 pounds and ate painkillers for breakfast (I was prescribed them for chronic back pain), I was slowly trying to kill myself. A troubled mind can easily rationalize that it’s not suicide if you’re not jumping off a building, pointing a gun at your head or wrapping a noose around your neck. Fortunately, I came to my senses before I could finish the job.

But I’ve seen relatives get hospitalized for suicidal talk and my best friend became one of the tragic statistics on November 15, 1996. When depression takes hold of the vulnerable mind, you stop thinking clearly and, at some point, you lose full control of sane actions and thought. Some people think suicides were simply cowards who couldn’t cope with life’s everyday challenges. But they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Depression lurks like a vulture, waiting for you to get just tired enough to submit to the torture.

I’ve learned to see my own depression as just another chronic illness that comes and goes. I’ve learned, in a strange way, to still be happy when I’m depressed most of the time. That sounds fucked up, but it’s the best way I can describe it.

Being lucky enough to have reached that point, I’ve made it my mission to help break the stigma.

Sadness and suicidal thoughts need not be the end. For a lot of people I know, it turned out to be just the beginning of a life full of wisdom and beauty.

The report understates an important point:

1 in 100 adults plotted suicide; 99 did not.

That doesn’t mean the 99 weren’t troubled, depressed and going through difficult times. But whatever the difficulties, they soldiered on. Just as I do today.

Because a depressed mind rarely equals a beaten soul.

Left hand with writing: I am stronger than Depression

Suicide Is Not a Rational Act

As this week has gone on, we’ve seen discussion continue about suicide and depression as more details about Robin Williams‘ death are made public.

Two conversations in particular highlight an important fact.

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http://youtu.be/ATsP7WlZ7i4

The first is a comment someone made regarding my post on Shepard Smith calling Williams’ suicide a cowardly act. Bert Knabe wote:

Looking at his words, I don’t think [Smith] was calling Williams a coward, he was saying one of those two things happens and you kill yourself. He’s probably right. In some cases it probably is a cowardly act – but those aren’t depression suicides. Those are ‘death is better than facing the consequences’ suicides – like when people leapt out of windows because of the stock market crash in 1929. Most of those are spur of the moment reactions without thought.

That’s an important point. There are spur-of-the-moment suicides instigated by shock and fear so intense that they overwhelm the person. There’s an inability to see life on the other side of the fresh calamity, 1929 being a pretty good example.

Suicide that comes at the end of a long struggle with depression is different. The depression is like a cancer, eating away at the sufferers mental ability to process information and confront realities for what they are and simply sucking the life force out of them.

In my opinion, both cases deal with people who no longer have the ability to think and act rationally. Their tether to reality is sliced away.

Need to talk? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-8255
You can talk to a trained counselor 24/7.

The other conversation started with something KISS bassist Gene Simmons said about depression. Simmons made this ridiculous comment:

For a putz 20-year-old kid to say, ‘I’m depressed. I live in Seattle.’ F– you, then kill yourself. I never understand, because I always call them on their bluff. I’m the guy who says ‘Jump’ when there’s a guy on top of a building who says, ‘That’s it, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to jump.’ Are you kidding? Why are you announcing it. Shut the f— up, have some dignity and jump! You’ve got the crowd. By the way, you walk up to the same guy on a ledge who threatens to jump and put a gun to his head, ‘I’m going to blow your f—in’ head off.’ He’ll go, ‘Please don’t.’ It’s true. He’s not that insane.

Mötley Crüe/SIXX AM bassist Nikki Sixx responded with his own story of addiction and depression:

It’s pretty moronic because [Gene] thinks everybody listens to him, that he is the god of thunder. He will tell you he is the greatest man on earth, and to be honest with you, I like Gene. But in this situation, I don’t like Gene. I don’t like Gene’s words, because … there is a 20-year-old kid out there who is a KISS fan and reads this and goes, ‘You know what? He’s right. I should just kill myself.’

Good on you, Nikki.

I like KISS and have a lot of respect for you, Gene. But all too often, you’re an asshole.

Suicide isn’t a rational choice, but that doesn’t mean we should give up on people who are suicidal.

Nikki Sixx and Gene Simmons