This week on #SPSM Chat co-hosts Rudy Caseres (@RudyCaseres), Hudson Harris (@MentalStrategy)), Danielle Glick (@DanielleGlick), and Joelle Marie Nourse (@LazTheLazTheLaz) discuss “Critiquing Suicide Prevention Month” with guests Dese’Rae L. Stage (@deseraestage) and Jess Stolhmann-Rainey (@JessStohlmann), hosts of the new podcast Suicide ‘n’ Stuff.
Watch as we discuss issues such as:
What are your issues with Suicide Prevention Month?
Who benefits most from Suicide Prevention Month?
What are the potential negative results of censoring people’s stories?
How can we improve next year’s Suicide Prevention Month?
Dese’Rae L. Stage is one of the original members of SPSM Chat and has been one of the leading voices of the suicide attempt survivor movement. Jess Stohlmann-Rainey has created quite the stir with her critical views on suicidology and the mental healthcare system. Together, they are quite the force and have the power to change the way people with lived experience are treated for the better. I highly recommend checking out their new video podcast Suicide ‘n’ Stuff as well as everything else they’ve ever produced. Links (although by no means exhaustive) are below:
Live Through This – Dese’Rae L. Stage
Jess’s Story – https://livethroughthis.org/jess-stohlmann-rainey/
CBS News – Live Through This: Telling The Stories Of Suicide Survivors
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/live-through-this-telling-the-stories-of-suicide-survivors/
How “Safe Messaging” Gaslights Suicidal People – Jess Stohlmann-Rainey
https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/08/safe-messaging-gaslights-suicidal-people/
Hegemonic Sanity and Suicide – Jess Stohlmann- Rainey
https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/08/hegemonic-sanity-and-suicide/
How Talking About Suicide Can Give People Something to Live For
https://www.oprahmag.com/life/health/a25416537/talking-about-suicide/
*Watch SPSM Chat live every Sunday 6pm PT/9pm ET at Twitter.com/spsmchat. All past episodes can be viewed on-demand on the SPSM YouTube channel, Facebook page, and at spsmchat.com.*
**SPSM Chat includes content about suicide and other experiences that may be traumatizing to you. You may experience strong or overwhelming emotions as a result. If you find yourself in distress or crisis, we encourage you to seek out support that works for you. Many people find it helpful to talk to a friend, family member, or someone else they trust.
If you would like formal crisis support, you can call National Suicide Prevention Lifeline ‘1-800-273-TALK (8255)’, Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada), or The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. If you don’t like talking on the phone, you can text HOME to 741741 to get to Crisis Text Line, or you can try Lifeline Crisis Chat. If you’d like to talk to a peer, warmline.org contains links to warmlines in the United States. If you’re not in the U.S., you can go to https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ for a connection to crisis centers around the world.
Many of these resources could utilize restrictive interventions, like active rescues (wellness or welfare checks) involving law enforcement or emergency services. A warmline is least likely to do this, but still might have these policies. You can ask if this is a possibility at any point in your conversation if this is a concern for you.
The following do not implement any restrictive interventions for people considering suicide:
Peerly Human online support groups: https://peerlyhuman.blogspot.com/
Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada)**
Dese’Rae L. Stage is an artist, mom, suicidologist, and advocate/activist. She is a self-taught photographer with experience in music journalism and crisis intervention training. She also has lived experience with suicidality and suicide loss—experiences she centers in her work. She ties these threads together with Live Through This, a multimedia storytelling series that aims to reduce prejudice and discrimination against suicide attempt survivors which reminds us that suicide is a human issue by elevating and amplifying survivors’ voices through raw, honest stories of survival, and pairing them with portraits—putting faces and names to the statistics that have been the only representation of attempt survivors in the past. She has interviewed and photographed 186 suicide attempt survivors in 36 US cities since 2010.
Live Through This has received media coverage from the New York Times, TIME, CBS Evening News, VICE, and many more. She is regularly invited to speak about her work and experiences at universities and suicide prevention events, including the NIMH Director’s Innovation Speaker Series alongside Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison. Live Through This is used as a resource by clinicians and as a teaching tool at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I’ve partnered with research teams in an effort to bring attempt survivor experiences to the forefront of suicide research. She is the main protagonist in a documentary about suicide prevention advocates called The S Word, currently screening nationwide. Her byline has appeared in Cosmopolitan (gay divorce), CNN (suicide), Romper (infertility), and more.
Jess Stohlmann-Rainey is a researcher, trainer, and advocate serving as the Director of Program Development at Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners. She has focused her career on creating pathways to intersectional, justice-based, emotional support for marginalized communities. Her specialties include designing and scaling sustainable programs, upstream approaches to prevention work, and empowering leaders to create positive change in the places we live, work, and learn. Jess has presented and trained nationally and internationally about suicide and violence prevention, diversity, gender, and leadership. Jess’s work has been published/featured in Mad in America, the RMIRECC’s Short Takes on Suicide Prevention, No Restraints with Rudy Caseras, Postvention in Action: The International Handbook of Suicide Bereavement, and The Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Jess centers her lived expertise as an ex-patient and suicide attempt and loss survivor in her work. She lives in Denver, CO with her partner (Jon) and a 16 year old chiweenie (Marty), and has a taxidermied two-headed duckling (Phil & Lil) for an office mate.
Suicide Prevention Social Media #SPSM 