Mirror Reflections: How What We Don’t Know About Suicide is Killing People

According to the CDC:   In 2013 (the most recent year for which full data are available), 41,149 suicides were reported, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death for Americans. In that year, someone in the country died by suicide every 12.9 minutes.

I recently read an article about a young, brilliant woman who died by suicide. She was accomplished, full of potential, and beloved by many.

But when I scrolled down to the comment section—where I expected sorrow, empathy, maybe even a collective ache—what I found instead was judgment. Cold words. Cruel assumptions.

One comment in particular gutted me:

“Suicide is so selfish.”

That comment sent me hurtling back in time.

Somewhere in the 1980s, I was sitting in the living room, watching one of those old ABC Afterschool Specials. The episode followed a teenager who had died by suicide. The scene was raw—her parents were breaking down in grief.

One of my older cousins walked in right then. She was a mother of two, and when I told her what the show was about, she sighed and said:

“People who kill themselves are so selfish.”

Now, I know she didn’t mean harm. She was a mom, probably imagining the unbearable pain of losing a child. And she is, by all accounts, a caring person.

But still… I was a child sitting on that couch.
And what no one in the room knew was that I had already begun to imagine ways to die. I was a little girl trying to survive sexual abuse and other forms of soul-crushing harm.

What they saw as stomachaches were symptoms of a much deeper suffering—one I didn’t yet have words for.

So yes, I felt the teenager’s pain on that screen. I felt seen in her despair. Not because I wanted to die, but because I didn’t know how to keep living with that much hurt inside of me.

That’s why those careless judgments hurt so much.
Because when someone says suicide is “selfish,” what they’re really saying is, “I didn’t stop to consider how much pain a person must be in to take that step.”

And that’s the problem.

If more of us could stop and really think about what level of pain would make someone believe the only option left is to leave this world…
Maybe we’d get better at offering real help.
Maybe we’d stop missing the signs.
Maybe we’d stop responding with silence, shame, or spiritual bypassing.

We’re so quick to offer what we think helps:
A quote.
A scripture.
A bestselling self-help book.
A reminder that “we all go through things.”

But what about life-saving support?

What about consistent, compassionate, tangible care?

Many of us know what to do in a physical crisis:
We know CPR.
We know how to stop a wound from bleeding.
We know not to pull a knife from a wound, because it could make things worse.

But how many of us know what to do in an emotional crisis?

Or maybe the better question is: how few of us do?

This isn’t just a call to be kind.
It’s a plea to be prepared. To care enough to learn.
To stand up for those in pain—not just in death, but while they’re still here, quietly trying to survive.

Because sometimes, what saves a life isn’t just medication or therapy or time.
Sometimes it’s knowing that someone sees you, someone believes you, someone thinks your life is worth fighting for—even when you don’t.

Let’s be those someones.
Let’s be better than the comment section.

Lifesaving Questions

Do you know the risk factors of suicide?

Do you know how to effectively help friends, family, and others?

Do you know what resources are available to people at risk of suicide?

I didn’t have all of the answers either.  But I found a lot of answers here:

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

I challenge us to start talking amongst ourselves and find even more answers.