Great. We’re color coded now.

Disclaimer: if you are involved in “suicide prevention” marches, speeches, pep rallies or ice cream socials, please skip this post as it will certainly offend.

Another “suicide prevention” spectacle was held, and this one caught my attention because people were supposed to wear beads to represent their suicidal experience. Red = loss of a spouse or partner, white = loss of a child, and green = personal struggle or attempt at suicide.

How about I wear yellow beads to represent the bile welling up in my throat every time I think of all the self-righteous people who raise money, sell t-shirts, do tv interviews and feed this big industry called “suicide prevention” when neither I nor any suicidal person I’ve known (successful and not) has ever been helped by any ridiculous march supposedly for my benefit.

“Suicide prevention” events are exactly the same as funerals. They don’t benefit the actual victim in any way. It’s just an excuse for everyone else to pat each other on the back and say “we’re doing something good!” even though nothing changes the fact that there’s another corpse going into the ground.

Once, just once, I would like to see a “suicide prevention” group offer some tangible help, not just empty words, billboards and tv ads to call a useless phone line. Like, wouldn’t it be so much more helpful if these groups offered financial assistance to people on the verge of suicide because they’ve lost their home? Wouldn’t it be more helpful for these groups to run a shelter for kids who are running away from abusive homes? Even medical assistance for women who have been raped. These are tangible things to help reduce suicide. But t-shirts and beads? No thanks. I don’t want a funeral and I don’t want a bunch of people saying they’re fighting for me when they don’t even know my name.