Break the silence and save lives

The silence around mental health problems and suicide can be overwhelming.

That is why treating an illness and helping prevent people from taking their own lives can be nearly impossible.

With the suicides last week of designer Kate Spade and world traveler, lover of food and the generally fascinating Anthony Bourdain, the spotlight is once more on why so many Americans are suffering.

People, for a change, are willing to talk.

From 1999 to 2016, the increase across the United States was 28 percent, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report, coincidentally, was released two days after Spade’s death and a day before Bourdain’s. Despite what feels like an epidemic, we are not utilizing the best research and approaches to save lives.

In New Mexico, according to data from the state Department of Health, suicide was the ninth-leading cause of death in 2016, and the second-leading cause for people ages 15 to 44.

During the past 20 years, the state reports suicide death rates have been at least 50 percent higher than U.S. rates — and in both the state and the nation, suicide deaths are increasing.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, “The real question is why our society has made so little progress in dealing with the public health crisis of suicide.

In fact, the suicide rate last year — 13.7 per 100,000 people — was nearly the same as the rate a century earlier.”

He believes that the stigma of suicide prevents us from grappling with its destruction.

After all, at one time in human history, victims of suicides were buried outside of consecrated ground, left alone for eternity. Their possessions were seized and their families shunned.

Today, we claim to be sympathetic. The shunning of the families is less overt, but many relatives of suicides report that after a death, friends simply do not come around.

Many suicide victims also were suffering from mental illness. Providing treatment to those sufferers could save lives.

One new wrinkle in the CDC report, though, was the news that more than half of the people who died by suicide seemed to be influenced by other factors, including relationship breakups, substance abuse, even health or financial setbacks.

These victims could be struggling with undiagnosed illnesses, of course, as the

Washington Post pointed out in an editorial calling for a more comprehensive strategy against suicide. Still, as the CDC concludes, it is clear that the problem of suicide is complex.

With the CDC report revealing that guns are the most common method people choose to kill themselves, it is clear once more that American attitudes on weapons must change.

“Lock firearms up” should be the refrain. Anyone contemplating self-harm should at least have to search out the means.

Discussing suicide more openly, as a disease rather than a personal failing, is another way to help people understand that it can be treated. There should be no shame in being ill. One tried-and-true method of helping? Ask friends how they are, and then listen, really listen, to the answer. (For people who could use help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 800-273-8255, and it works 24 hours a day.)

The possibilities for saving our family, friends and neighbors are limited only by our will and our commitment to undertake research and find solutions. Suicide is a public health crisis. Treat it like one.