I tried to kill myself at Yale University when I was a student there 51 years ago. Returning to the 50th Reunion of the class of 1966, the class I didn’t graduate with, I sought closure to what has always been a painful experience. A friend from those undergraduate years invited me to come. I [...]
Any time there is a forum for people to talk about their shared experiences – that’s a good thing. Sometimes we just want to be around people who get it – it’s comforting. Having a day set aside to honor or memorialize people who have died by suicide or loved somebody who has, is a [...]
Dark Days: I experienced many dark days from the ages of 4 to 40. I experienced various types of abuse and trauma during those years, and I began having symptoms of mental illness as early as 7. The symptoms weren’t always consistent, and my behavior was misconstrued as, “she is just being a bad girl,” [...]
"And we're LIVE!" For two years, I start just about every weekly Suicide Prevention Social Media Chat (#SPSM) livestream with those words. Those words weren't intentional. It's just how things turned out. If you want to do a regular social media event about a topic that everyone says no one wants to talk about, I [...]
