Censorship of lived experience of suicide
In the lived experience movement, we have been told for many years, just how to tell our stories. Some guidance is needed, like steering clear of describing method in detail, as public telling of details may have unintended impacts on our audiences. But other guidance is questionable when it comes to why. We have been told to focus on recovery only, not use phrases that, when taken out of the context they are used, have a remote link to suicide methods and to fit our story into a framework that describes a pinnacle moment and then resolution of our struggles.
This censorship often discounts diverse and complex stories of suicide and perpetuate belief of a singular suicide experience. The truth is, we are yet to find a single way to talk about suicide.
When I started using my lived experience in suicide prevention, the main way to understand suicide was through a biomedical/mental health lens. You were suicidal because you were depressed. The rationale being that if you felt desperate enough to want to die by suicide, you must be miserable on a very extreme level. I accepted this system of understanding and would tell my story in connection with feelings of depression, anxiety, severe body image issues and being weighed down by how miserable it was being in the world.
Then I found an incredible paper by Scott Fitzpatrick and things started to make more sense to me. In this paper, Scott argues that because organisations provide boundaries around what stories are told and how, it shapes the way we discuss suicide in public and therefore privileges some stories over others:
“suicide prevention organizations make possible yet constrain the creation of personal stories of suicide, shaping the discursive meanings of public stories of suicide while setting limits on which stories are valued, legitimized, and rendered intelligible.”. [1]
This really rang true for me because whenever I have been asked to share my lived experience, it is through the lens of the particular organisation who has asked. Each organisation generally provides training on “how” to tell a lived experience story and a structure to follow in the telling. This is helpful for initially finding the words needed but what are the unintended impacts of this? It unintendedly imposes censorship on what stories are told in suicide prevention. This is something we aren’t talking about.
In recording stories for the campaign “More than just storytellers” [2], I have heard many different ways to tell a lived experience story. Some of these do not conform to what I have been taught as the “correct” way to tell a story. Listening to them, I found myself cringing and thinking “oh, you can’t say that” but then I challenged myself to really think about why?
Our personal stories are that, personal stories. They are reflections on what we have lived through and as such, are subjective interpretations of things happening around and within us. Who has a right to tell us “you can’t say that”? When our own understandings of suicide are challenged by someone else’s understandings of suicide, it can be easy to discount them and label them as wrong but we have to think deeper about why we feel the need to silence some stories over others. Are we simply perpetuating dominant understandings of suicide and marginalising others who think and feel differently?
I do see an alternative. I believe we need to give a platform to the stories that do not fit within the boundaries of suicide prevention organisations. I hear time and time again from people with lived experience that suicide is messy, uncomfortable and challenging. Why do we then only publish stories that show suicide as linear, clear and with an easy resolution? If we are to truly de-stigmatise and understand suicide, we must become comfortable with the uncomfortable. We need to be able to openly discuss when we agree and disagree in a space free of judgement. We need to remove the censorship that the suicide prevention sector has become so accustomed to.
Re-iterating that some form of censorship is needed. There are demonstrated ways of talking about suicide that are harmful and based on lived experience and scientific literature. These guidelines must be followed but we must question why some storytelling frameworks exist and if they are truly necessary. It is time we got comfortable with the messiness and challenge of suicide lived experiences in all the ways they exist in our communities. It is time we empowered others to be present with people with lived experience when their stories are not nice or follow a recovery trajectory. Suicide is difficult, but no more so than for those who live it and we need to stop imposing censorship rules for them to navigate and follow, simply for them to be heard.
Let’s lean into open conversations with compassionate curiosity and acknowledge, hear and celebrate the diversity in lived experience of suicide.
[1] Fitzpatrick, S. J. (2016). Ethical and political implications of the turn to stories in suicide prevention. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 23(3-4), 265–276. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2016.0029
[2] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPB9CeRalFPEmwwwCAZ4K-tj8Q4x35YUU
