The Lehigh women’s soccer coach, Eric Lambinus, was sitting outside Fado, an Irish pub in downtown Philadelphia, talking on the phone with his wife, when he spotted a familiar face walking toward him and quickly told his wife he would need to call her back. In town for a coaching convention, he and his assistant coach, Amy Huff, were at Fado with Mike Bend, who at the time coached the school’s men’s soccer team. “Maddy!” Eric called, right after hanging up with his wife. He began walking across the street toward her.
The coach couldn’t help but feel that spotting Maddy was a stroke of good fortune: perhaps their crossing paths was serendipitous. He and the rest of Lehigh’s coaching staff had been disappointed when she’d changed her mind at the end of the recruiting process, backing out of her verbal commitment and deciding to run track instead of play soccer. They believed she would have been a very good college player.
Eric had also heard through the grapevine—players on his team still kept in touch with Maddy, as well as with Maddy’s friends—that she wasn’t happy at Penn. Neither Eric nor Amy had any additional details about her situation, including whether she might legitimately consider transferring or if her malaise simply represented the usual freshman ups and downs. Maybe if she did want to leave, they had a chance—a second chance. They also wanted to know how she was doing, as both Eric and Amy had spent hours on the phone with her, had gotten to know her well—better than most recruits—and were genuinely interested in whether she was enjoying her first year of college. They both liked her.
Madison lifted her head upon hearing her name. She spotted Eric, the coach she had almost gone to play for out of high school. He was crossing the street toward her. In her right hand, she was holding a shopping bag.
For much of the afternoon, Maddy had responded to her phone messages, but at some point she had stopped looking at the new texts as they popped up. Earlier that day, after finishing class, she had begun rewriting the script for her Friday afternoon and evening. None of these changes seemed premeditated or planned in advance, but as she began rearranging things, she couldn’t bring herself to casually text, to continue seeing the names of her friends and family. She had made the decision to separate herself from them, and that separation started when she stopped responding on her phone.
The night before, she and Ingrid had watched the remake of The Parent Trap. The two friends had parted ways early, since Maddy had morning obligations: a test to take, as well as a lifting workout for the track team. When they had said goodbye, Ingrid had walked away believing she would see her friend the next night. The pair had continued texting the following afternoon, about which sororities they were most interested in. And as the afternoon wore on, Ingrid finally asked if she was definitely seeing Maddy that night. But to this final text, Maddy didn’t respond.
Ingrid: Taylor and I have exactly the same except our first and second are swapped
Maddy at 12:14: Did not everyone get all six? Ahh mines diff. Whaaaat I wonder how that worked out
Ingrid at 3:52: Idkk are you done with class?
Maddy at 5:36: Ahh yes sorry I went running
Maddy: Whatcha doing
Although Maddy told Ingrid she had gone running that afternoon, it’s unclear if she actually had, because she also sent an e-mail to Steve Dolan in the middle of the afternoon, when she would have been running, asking if she could opt out of the afternoon workout.
On Jan. 17, 2014, at 2:07 PM, Madison wrote:
Hi! My legs are still pretty sore so could I just do the bike again today and then do a workout tomorrow?
From: Stephen Dolan
Date: Fri, Jan. 17, 2014 at 3:29 PM
Madison,
Ok. Let’s talk on the phone later about the plan for this weekend.
Call me anytime after 7:00.
Coach
Madison never called Dolan. Ingrid believed she was meeting up with Maddy that night after each of them continued rush, which was set to begin at 6 p.m. at Houston Hall. Actually, Maddy should have been at Houston Hall right about the time she ran into Eric. She had received a reminder e-mail about the event less than two hours before.
Instead of being on campus at that moment, Maddy was on a downtown Philly street corner, watching Eric walk toward her. She hadn’t expected to see anyone, let alone the soccer coach she had spurned in favor of Penn, but now there was no way to avoid him, since they’d made eye contact and he had called her name. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, a coat—just an everyday outfit, not athletic gear.
Eric and Maddy walked across the street to join Amy and Mike. After the standard greetings, Eric asked Maddy what she was doing alone downtown on a Friday night.
“Just doing some shopping,” Maddy told him, lifting the bag in her hand.
“Get anything good?” he asked.
“Just some gifts for my family,” she said.
She had actually bought the gifts earlier in the day, at the U of Penn Bookstore. While she was there her dad had called, which was not unusual: everyone was worried about her and checking in several times a day. Jim wanted to know if she’d made any progress on finding a therapist in Philly. Both Jim and Stacy had agreed that, along with the counselor she was seeing at home, Maddy needed professional help from someone near school.
Madison told her dad that she hadn’t yet found a therapist in Philly, but that she would. And maybe she planned to find one, in the same way she was still planning for second semester, still rushing sororities and inquiring about a room switch. Nothing is decided until it is. Yet she was at that very moment shopping for her family and friends. She bought Godiva chocolates for Jim. She bought a necklace for her mom. She bought gingersnaps for her grandparents, who always had that flavor in their home. She bought an outfit for Hayes, her nephew, who had been born two weeks earlier, on New Year’s Eve. She had a copy of The Happiness Project for Ingrid, with a note scribbled inside. She also had that picture of herself as a young kid, holding a tennis racquet. She had shown that picture to her dad over holiday break and announced that she was borrowing it, that she needed it for something, though she didn’t say for what. She also had a note she had written, trying to explain herself.
These were the items inside the shopping bag Maddy was holding as she spoke to Eric. Of course, Eric thought nothing of the exchange: he assumed the bag was filled with belated Christmas gifts.
“I heard things aren’t going great at Penn,” Eric said.
“Yeah, it’s much different than I thought it would be,” she said. “But I’m not sure what to do about it.”
“Different how?” Eric asked.
“School is difficult, so much more than high school,” Madison said. “All of it is really, really hard, plus I’m not enjoying track.”
“Just have honest conversations with everyone about how things are going,” he said. Then he added, “And if Penn isn’t the school for you, that’s okay—really. It will be okay.”
Eric told her that options still existed, that just because she had chosen Penn first didn’t mean she couldn’t change her mind. A standard process existed if she wanted to transfer, and, yes, she needed to jump through the proper hoops, but that was always still an option. Eric wanted to be careful about what he was saying. He didn’t want to be seen to be poaching a player from another school, but he also felt he knew Maddy, what drove her, and he had always believed she loved soccer. So he wanted to convey a simple message to her without saying the actual words: she could still come play soccer at Lehigh.
Maddy was noncommittal.
“How are you doing, though?” Eric asked again.
“Fine,” she said, glancing at the server walking past. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” she looked down.
“Well, look, if you ever really need anything, please don’t hesitate to call,” Eric said. “You can always reach out.”
“Thanks,” Madison said, beginning to walk away. “I appreciate that.”
“Good luck,” Eric said.
“Good luck!” Amy echoed.
“Good seeing you,” Madison said, then turned and continued down the street.
Once Madison was out of earshot, Eric and Amy explained to Mike the backstory: the aggressive recruitment, the verbal commitment, and the last-minute switch. Mike told the two coaches they had been nicer to Maddy than he might have been, given her behavior in the past, but the two coaches were too thrilled at the idea that they might have a second shot at Madison. “Amy and I both said we were really happy to see her,” Eric later recalled. “We both kept talking about how great she would be for our team. She looked good; she looked fit. We were happy to see her, and it seemed like good fortune. We just thought it was meant to be, a little bit.”
A few minutes later the three coaches went into Fado for dinner. When they left, about an hour and a half later, they noticed police cars blocking the street, but that was not unusual in Philadelphia. The group turned around and walked the long way, giving not another thought to the commotion.
The parking garage at the corner of Spruce and 15th is a block from Fado. The structure is nondescript: it’s next to a Rita’s, the famous Philly water ice chain, and the ground floor is occupied by a sports bar, Fox & Hound. In fact, the entire corner is unremarkable. There’s a drugstore on one side, a dry cleaning joint down the street, and the Kimmel Center is adjacent—a lovely, looming building, but hardly magnificent. “We asked her Penn friends how she would know to go there, and they said they had no idea,” Justine says. “It’s not near Penn. I’m guessing she might have gone for a run or a walk one day. Or maybe she chose it that day. No one in Philly can make the connection.”
One notable distinction exists. On the front of the parking garage is a small art installation. Painted onto the cement walls are fragments of phrases. The words conjure distinct images, and an energy emanates from the building that makes a passerby feel as if something within might be haunted. The artwork frames the entrance door to the parking garage, which leads to the interior stairs, which eventually lead to the top of the structure. The installation, called Passing Through, is one in a series of twenty throughout Philadelphia, the City of Murals.
The artwork on the parking garage consists of dozens of unconnected phrases, fleeting thoughts, stenciled onto the cement. One phrase, along the bottom of the wall, reads “She had wings on.” Next to the words is a drawing of a woman with flowing hair who appears to be trapped in some metaphysical state, her eyes pressed closed, her hair unruly. At first glance the words on the building seem confusing: Do any relate? And if so, how?
The origin story of each Passing Through site starts with a tape recorder. A person standing at the site of the future artwork records the conversations of people as they pass. But because the person holding the recorder is stationary, only fragments of these conversations are caught, which produces a steady stream of seemingly unrelated words and thoughts.
On its website, Passing Through posted the text captured at each site. Here is a chunk of the conversations recorded at the parking garage at 15th and Spruce: “I try to live life as if tomorrow will never come good luck to you nice talking to you no one can compare cracks it open warm bottle the point is the other half wants to ask that question you know she constantly argues and fights I tell her all about the patient about an hour and 45 minutes later she doesn’t answer my page could you give me all of them at once…”
Madison walked directly to this parking garage after running into Eric.
Before she left her dorm room that morning, she made her bed. She never made her bed. She also cleaned her side of the space and scribbled a note that she left in the room: “I don’t know who I am anymore. Trying. Trying. Trying. I’m sorry. I love you… sorry again… sorry again… sorry again… How did this happen?”
Maddy had placed a second note inside the bag she was holding, tucked among the gifts for her family. She opened the door to the garage stairwell and climbed the nine flights to the top. Only one or two cars were parked on the top level because there were spots open below, so there was no need for drivers to circle all the way up. The pavement of the top level sloped upward toward the southern railing. The view of South Philly, of its twinkling lights, was arresting. Madison loved views. She loved images she could frame, that she could file away if only for a few moments in the cabinet of her mind. And the vista from this perch was vast; the tallest buildings were behind the viewer, so the twilight sky seemed to stretch all the way to Delaware. In a way, standing at the top of that parking garage felt like being inside a cube, but with one open side—the side Maddy was now facing. Every other direction consisted of tall buildings pressing against each other.
Madison placed the shopping bag on the ground. The note inside explained, as best she could, what was about to happen, but mostly the words provided a guide for something much less confusing: which gift was for whom.
She left the picture of herself as a kid with a tennis racquet tucked inside a copy of the young adult book Reconstructing Amelia, which tells the story of a devastated single mother who pieces together clues about the death of her daughter, who supposedly killed herself by jumping off a building at her prep school. The book is a mystery in the vein of Gone Girl, and both books feature a twist: At the end of Reconstructing Amelia it’s revealed that Amelia didn’t jump; she was pushed. In the book, nothing is as it seems.
This book’s presence on the roof of the parking garage remains confusing to her family and friends. (Her parents haven’t read the book, only the synopsis.) Did Madison want them to comb through her past to try to piece together the different versions of her, to come to some logical solution for why she had jumped off the building? And that final twist at the end of the book: Was that just an inconvenient detail that didn’t fit into Madison’s story, but since so much else about the book did fit—Amelia was even Madison’s confirmation name—she was willing to overlook the ill-fitting ending? Or was she figuratively trying to say that Madison felt she, too, had been pushed?
Maybe all Madison was trying to say was that she saw a version of herself in Amelia, in the perfectly crafted veneer that could never feel like an honest reflection of her interior life. Just as Madison worried that she could never find validation for her struggle, because how could someone so beautiful, so seemingly put together, be unhappy? This is illogical, of course, like believing a computer’s hard drive can’t break simply because the screen hasn’t a scratch.
Depression does not have a one-size-fits-all prognosis. Bill Schmitz Jr., the former president of the American Association of Suicidology, points out that the course varies. “In a way, it’s the same as cancer,” he says. “For some, we might prolong life for months, for years. For others, it can be very sudden.”
Madison left the bag of gifts out in the open, where she knew it would be found, then walked away from it. The farther she got from the bag, the farther from any connection to her family, her friends, and to the life she had just started to live.
There are friends and family who believe Madison took a running leap over the metal railing, clearing the side as she had once cleared hurdles on the track. She landed in the bike lane some distance from the side of the building, which seems to suggest a momentum that could not have been gained from standing on the edge, looking down, and dropping. If she’d taken a running leap, then Maddy never had to stare at the ground, truly contemplate it, before choosing to let go.
Maybe she meant to jump. But then, maybe she didn’t truly understand. Then again, maybe she did. “People do a lot of different research before doing this,” Emma says. “And if you run and jump, it just happens. It’s over with. And you don’t have to struggle. I just can picture her walking up there and knowing that she could jump, just setting her mind to it and knowing it could happen—that’s something I can see her doing. When she gets on that line in track, it’s like: ‘I’m doing this.’ She was so determined with everything that she did, maybe even too determined. That’s not the greatest way that people should be. But that was something about her.”
“I’ve thought about what that must have felt like, being up there,” says Jackie Reyneke. “That’s something that’s scary to me, looking down. When I’m at an amusement park, at the top of a Ferris wheel or roller coaster, and I look down, I always think, ‘How could she have done that?’”
The first responders found the gifts with the following note:
I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in. For you mom… the necklaces… for you, Nana & Papa… Gingersnaps (always reminds me of you)… For you Ingrid… The Happiness Project. And Dad… the Godiva chocolate truffles. I love you all… I’m sorry. I love you.
The first sentence of Madison’s note is a quote from Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself at the age of fifty-nine.
The last thing Stacy Holleran texted her daughter was an update on how the family’s youngest, Brendan, had performed at his track meet. At 7:35 p.m., she wrote: “B came in 2nd in 4x4.” About two hours later, as Stacy was collecting Brendan from Highlands, a call came in to Stacy’s cell phone from a 215 area code: Philadelphia. The call was from Steve Dolan. “My phone rings, and I answer by saying, ‘Is Madison okay?’” recalls Stacy. “Something didn’t feel right: Why is he calling me so late on a Friday night? And he just didn’t know what to say—I think he assumed I had gotten a call already. I think he was calling to say he was sorry, and he paused. He thought the police or school had already called. So he’s like, ‘I heard something happened to Madison, but I’ll find out more details and call you back.’”
Shaking, Stacy hung up and immediately called her husband. After that, she called Ingrid.
“Are you with Madison?” Stacy asked.
“No, I haven’t heard from her,” Ingrid said.
Stacy explained the call she had just received, then asked, “Who might she be with?”
Ingrid said she wasn’t sure, that she hadn’t heard from Madison in hours, and that Maddy was supposed to have met some people at the Penn cafeteria but hadn’t shown. Ingrid said she would go over to Madison’s dorm and call Emily, Maddy’s roommate.
While Stacy was talking to Ingrid, Jim was talking to Ashley, who was back at school in Alabama.
“Have you talked to Madison?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just talked to her, like, this afternoon—everything was fine,” Ashley said. She had been on a group text with Maddy and Mackenzie; they were assessing the cuteness of a boy Ashley was considering going on a date with. Do you guys think he’s cute? Ashley had typed. Madison responded: Eh, debatable. But when Ashley prodded her sister for more, writing, Helllooooooo?, she hadn’t heard back. That was in midafternoon.
“Well, try calling her,” Jim said. “Her phone is dead.”
Ashley called. No answer. But that wasn’t unusual for Maddy. By that time of night her phone was often out of power and she was at a party anyway, and there was no way to connect with her until she got back to her dorm. Ashley logged on to Facebook and went to her sister’s page. It said she was last active just a few hours earlier.
A few minutes later, Ashley’s phone rang again. This time it was her mom. Stacy had just received another call from a 215 number: this one from the chaplain at Penn.
After hanging up with Stacy, Ingrid ran across campus to Hill, Maddy’s dorm. Emily was there watching a movie with friends, in the room across from the one she shared with Maddy. That afternoon she had been at track practice, wondering, along with the rest of the team, where Maddy was. Emily knew that her roommate had switched her training plan, but she still found Madison’s absence that afternoon unsettling. One of their teammates had asked Emily if she knew where Maddy might be, or when they could expect to see her, but Emily didn’t know, so she just shrugged and said as much.
Around ten o’clock that evening, during the middle of the movie, Emily’s phone rang. It was Ingrid. Emily looked at the caller ID. She knew of Ingrid only through Maddy, but she answered because she figured Ingrid would have a specific reason for calling.
“Are you in your room?” Ingrid asked. She sounded panicked.
“No, I’m across the hall,” Emily said.
“With Madison?” Ingrid asked.
“No, I haven’t seen her.”
“I need you to come down to the lobby,” Ingrid said. Her voice was so even in its tone, without inflection, without emphasis on any specific word, that Emily’s heart rate spiked. She stood up from the bed and walked downstairs to the lobby. Ingrid was standing there, phone in her shaking hand.
“You have to call your coach,” Ingrid said. “You have to call him.”
“I don’t understand—why?” Emily asked.
“Something has happened to Madison,” Ingrid said. “You have to call him.”
“What—what do you mean—what happened?” Emily looked at her phone.
“I don’t know, but we can’t find her,” Ingrid said. She seemed to know more than she was saying. “You have to call your coach.”
“What? What do you mean?” Emily’s first thought was that Maddy had tried to kill herself, but she couldn’t really complete that idea.
“Please call your coach,” Ingrid said.
Emily found Steve Dolan’s number in her contacts and hit the call button, but she didn’t know what she would say when he answered—I’m calling about Madison? I’m calling because I think maybe something happened to Madison?
“Can you talk to him?” Emily asked as the call started ringing. “Because I don’t know what’s happening.”
Emily handed the phone to Ingrid. Dolan answered.
“I’m calling about Madison…” Ingrid began.
Emily could hear her coach talking on the other end. She could also see Ingrid’s hand shaking, her breath becoming irregular. A few seconds later Ingrid began crying hysterically, unable to hold on to the phone any longer.
Down in Alabama, Ashley’s phone began to ring again.
“Mom,” Ashley said. Then she realized that both her parents were on the line.
“She’s gone,” Stacy said. “She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s… gone.”
“What?” Ashley said. “Gone?”
“She’s dead. Madison is dead.”
“Oh my God.”
Ashley walked into her roommate’s room and told her what her parents had just said. Ashley shook her head: “I don’t even know what’s going on right now.”
“What do you want to do?” her roommate asked.
“Let’s go for a ride.”
As the two drove around Tuscaloosa, the texts started pouring into Ashley’s phone. Then her grandpa called, crying. He had exchanged e-mails with Madison just a few weeks before:
On Friday, December 13, 2013:
I WANT TO KNOW AND I want to know the truth—HOW is Madison Holleran doing and I don’t mean your grades.
I mean how are Y O U doing?
Answer quickly as I am old with not a lot of time left. Papa.
Madison responded the same day:
Date: Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: YOU!
Never been worse
(The two spoke on the phone after this exchange.)
“Are you okay?” Papa now asked his middle granddaughter, because she seemed distant, stunned. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Ashley replied, then looked at her hands, which she couldn’t keep steady. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Coach?” Emily said, standing in the lobby of Hill.
Dolan repeated what he had just told Ingrid: Madison had killed herself. He told Emily not to tell anyone else yet, because he needed to coordinate a way to inform everybody, in the correct way, and not have the information burn through the campus like an awful game of telephone.
“Yes, Coach,” Emily said. “Okay, Coach.”
She ended the call. The information didn’t make sense. Emily didn’t shout, or cry, or yell. She just stood there. Maddy killed herself? But I just saw her. And now she’s dead. How… why… what?
Ingrid was a mess, inconsolable. The resident advisors who were on duty came to the lobby, and suddenly the space was filled with people, all wanting to know what had happened. The housing staff helped Ingrid and Emily to the lounge, calling Ingrid’s roommate as they walked, asking if she could come to Hill and help with Ingrid.
An e-mail was sent out by the housing department to everyone who lived in Hill, letting them know that one of the students who lived in their dorm, Madison Holleran, had died. People started congregating in the lounge. The school’s counseling services, CAPS, sent over employees to help. Because there were parties and events taking place all over campus, people started calling Emily to find out what had happened: Was it true?
At 12:41 a.m. Steve Dolan sent this e-mail:
From: Steve Dolan
Date: Sat, Jan. 18, 2014 at 12:41 AM
Dear Track and Field Family,
This is the hardest email I have ever had to write. It is with a heavy heart that I share with you the following information about your teammate and friend Madison Holleran.
In grief and sorrow we share the news that Madison Holleran (C ’17) died Friday evening in Center City, Philadelphia. She was 19 and lived in Hill.
We will be having an emergency team meeting at 8:15 at the Dunning Coaches Center for all those who are not traveling on the early bus to tomorrow’s meet. Coach Martin and I will be by our phones throughout the night if you have any questions or need or want to talk. I am on my way into the office, and will be there throughout the night.
Our numbers are below.
Emily stayed in the lounge at Hill until the sun was peeking over the horizon. Someone had pulled a mattress into the room across the hall from the one she had shared with Maddy. Emily slept there for a few nights so she wouldn’t have to face what was behind the closed door.
“I put my phone away early that night,” recalls Emma, who had been in her room at Boston College. “I woke up to a hundred text messages and calls. I was the last person to know. I was sound asleep; it was terrible. I called my mom right away. I had read my messages and I said, ‘Mom, did Maddy die?’ She was already on her way to come get me. I was like, ‘It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think she got murdered.’ I started to realize she had done this to herself, because in my heart, nothing bad happened to her—I knew it wasn’t something bad. Something clicked in my head that maybe suicide is what happened.”
I am nervous. I’m waiting in a café in New York City, just around the corner from Columbia University. The décor is funky bohemian: tattered couches, lopsided coffee tables, lamps with jewel shades, beer in small cafeteria cups.
I’m nervous because any minute, Dese’Rae Stage will walk into the shop. I texted her that I’ve arrived at our agreed-upon location and that I’m sitting near the kitchen. The three dots immediately appeared on my iPhone—she was composing a response. “Be right there,” she wrote. A small part of me had hoped she would cancel. Conversations with strangers require focus, steady energy, the burden of making sure the conversation is efficient, never stalls, never becomes awkward. It’s like going to the gym for a workout: until the moment it begins, you kind of hold out hope it won’t.
But I’m mostly glad Dese’Rae is about to walk through the door. As a suicide survivor, she possesses insight I do not. She is a photographer, occasional writer, and suicide awareness activist. Stage’s main project is called Live Through This, a portrait and oral history series on survivors of suicide attempts. The goal of the series is to humanize survivors, to shatter the stereotype about who lives with suicidal thoughts, and to change the conversation around suicide.
This last sentence—changing the conversation—is why I’ve asked Stage to meet me for coffee. We first met on Twitter in an exchange about how the American media—newspapers, magazines, documentaries, movies, even music—talks about suicide. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention created a set of guidelines for how to write about suicide in a respectful way. And yet these guidelines are often ignored or manipulated, because they often deny our curiosity—that is, answering the who, what, where, why, when of a story.
Instead of This: Big or sensationalistic headlines, or prominent placement (e.g., “Kurt Cobain Used Shotgun to Commit Suicide”).
Do This: Inform the audience without sensationalizing the suicide and minimize prominence (e.g., “Kurt Cobain Dead at 27”).
Instead of This: Including photos/videos of the location or method of death, grieving family, friends, memorials or funerals.
Do This: Use school/work or family photos; include hotline logo or local crisis phone numbers.
Instead of This: Describing recent suicides as an “epidemic,” “skyrocketing,” or other strong terms.
Do This: Carefully investigate the most recent CDC data and use non-sensational words like “rise” or “higher.”
Instead of This: Describing a suicide as inexplicable or without warning.
Do This: Most, but not all, people who die by suicide exhibit warning signs. Include the “Warning Signs” and “What to Do” sidebar in your article if possible.
Instead of This: “John Doe left a suicide note saying…”
Do This: “A note from the deceased was found and is being reviewed by the medical examiner.”
Instead of This: Investigating and reporting on suicide similar to reporting on crimes.
Do This: Report on suicide as a public health issue.
Instead of This: Quoting/interviewing police or first responders about the causes of suicide.
Do This: Seek advice from suicide prevention experts.
Instead of This: Referring to suicide as “successful” or “unsuccessful” or a “failed attempt.”
Do This: Describe as “died by suicide” or “completed” or “killed him/herself.”
Stage walks through the door. I’m right in her line of sight, so she nods and walks over. We hug, even though this is the first time we’ve met. After a few minutes of small talk—she has just come from San Francisco, after an interview for Live Through This—we jump into the complicated topic of writing about, and talking about, suicide. To be clear: She does not speak for the entire community. Her opinions should not be considered chapter and verse, but rather one valuable viewpoint within a world of varying beliefs.
Kate: What kind of job does the U.S. do when it comes to discussing suicide?
Dese’Rae: We’re a country full of rubberneckers, you know? So when suicide comes up, we’re either going to make a joke about it, have it be the punch line, or with writers, it’s often hyperfocused on the precise moment of death: “This is what happened, here is who saw it, here’s how it felt to see it, this is the way in which the blood splattered.” And rarely does this kind of coverage get to the core of the issue: How was this person feeling? How can we change it? Why is this happening?
Kate: Throughout human history, storytelling has provided comfort. How do you balance that fact with the idea that, when it comes to suicide, too much storytelling can be gratuitous and dangerous in perpetuating myths about suicide?
Dese’Rae: They’re not mutually exclusive: good storytelling and humane storytelling. What’s not happening right now, that needs to happen more, is writers asking themselves what insight a certain detail actually offers the reader. For example, publishing a suicide note. What insight is that giving us into that person other than how they felt in, possibly, the toughest moment of their life? Will publishing that note offer us much insight into the total person, or just fulfill a curiosity?
Kate: Okay, so I get your point about rubbernecking, but still I wonder…
Dese’Rae: And, to be clear, that isn’t a judgment. I’m a super rubbernecker, too—we all are…
Kate: So what do you see as the concern around people reading these details and, as you say, rubbernecking?
Dese’Rae: Suicide notes, well—they’re romantic, in a way, and also they’re abnormal. I believe the latest statistic is that 18 percent of people leave suicide notes. So publishing a suicide note perpetuates the myth that everyone leaves one.
Kate: Oh, wow, just 18 percent? That’s lower than I would have thought.
Dese’Rae: Right! Most people don’t leave suicide notes. So there is that. And suicide notes give us this feeling that we’re going into those last moments and really feeling that moment and basking in its sadness and its tragedy. But, also, because of that, a suicide note anchors us in that single moment. It does not focus our attention on the more important areas: the beyond, in both directions, the before and after this single moment. What leads up to it and what comes after—does the suicide note offer us insight into any of that? No, we focus on the suicide. I don’t think enough people realize that suicide is something that is cumulative, and there are certain catalysts. And in our storytelling, we often need to find one specific reason. It’s much, much more complicated and you’re never going to boil it down to a single headline.
Kate: Why are the guidelines the way they are?
Dese’Rae: Truth is, suicide prevention is a young field. I mean, Edwin Shneidman pioneered this field and opened the first suicide prevention center in 1958. That’s not that long ago. So we’re still trying to gather information so that we can make better decisions and recommendations. First, we need to find out exactly how suicide is talked about in popular culture and everyday life. I’ve started logging any reference to suicide I see in pop culture. Not through Google searches, which would require me to seek it out, but just organic references to suicide. I want to understand where we’re coming from as a culture. People often say: “We don’t talk about suicide.” That’s actually not true. We are talking about it. It’s just that we’re talking about it, often, in really unhelpful ways.
Kate: Can I have an example?
Dese’Rae: For example, in our TV shows, there are constant references to suicide, but they’re almost always jokes. And that’s not to say I don’t have a sense of humor about suicide—doing this work you kind of have to—but on TV, the people making these jokes and writing these jokes don’t seem to have thoughtfully considered suicide. They’re just throwing something out there halfheartedly, in the hopes of getting a laugh. My concern is that if this is how we’re thinking about and portraying suicide—as something someone might do just because they got broken up with—then how can we get people to care about it in a meaningful way, one that might change the suicide rate, or change the funding?
Kate: And how often are we speaking about suicide in a sophisticated way?
Dese’Rae: Not often. One example of when it was handled really well was the movie Skeleton Twins. It’s funny and it’s sad, and there’s a part in it that’s scary: a graphic depiction of a suicide attempt. But these characters feel relatable and three-dimensional. The thing for me about suicide is all about relatability: if we can relate to the people who have been through it, then maybe we’re going to care. But if we’re constantly jabbering in a distant way, as if these aren’t real people—your friends, your neighbors, your family members—how are we going to get anywhere?
Kate: Sometimes, I think, a lot of people don’t want to talk about suicide in a real, sophisticated way because it’s just too scary.
Dese’Rae: Oh, absolutely, I get that. I think that’s why some professionals didn’t want to hear from people like me, from living survivors, for so long. Because then it was like, “Oh, now I’m being faced with this thing—literally in my face. This human is in front of me and they tried to kill themselves and what does that mean?” That is scary on so many levels. What I try to do in my work is show the depth and breadth of people who experience this—and it’s scary, but denying its existence isn’t helping anybody. So how can we talk about it in a safe way? I think letting people who have been through it talk openly and matter-of-factly is helpful. There is research that proves that exposure to people with mental health issues is hugely impactful on the attitudes of everyone around them. This might be common sense, but everyday people sharing their stories is even more important than celebrities using their platforms.
Kate: How do we satisfy the need to talk about suicide openly, but to not encourage clusters, or copycat suicides?
Dese’Rae: I would like to imagine that the silence, or the inability to talk about it in healthy ways, directly relates to more suicides. I’m concerned when I see a kid kill themselves, and in the aftermath, we say, “Oh, if we plant a tree, that romanticizes the fact they died, so let’s not talk about it at all, ’cause why did they do that?” It doesn’t have to be that way. People die by suicide, and they were people and we loved them, so honor them. There is a line between honoring and romanticizing what happened.
Kate: When it comes to suicide, why do we become so preoccupied with finding a “why”?
Dese’Rae: If it’s cancer, it’s scary, but we can deal with it and there is usually a game plan. If it’s suicide, it could be any number of things, or a mixture of things, or years of traumas—all kinds of stuff. You can’t pinpoint it, and I think that’s what’s scary. So looking for the “why?” is about answering the question “How do I avoid this thing happening to me? How can I avoid it?” But the truth is, you can’t. If you do, it’s simply because you’re lucky.
Kate: How can we be more responsible when talking about suicide?
Dese’Rae: The question is: Is the act the climax? I don’t think it is. Say, my story: I experienced an acutely bad two years and I made a decision one day based on a catalyst and I took some pills and I drank some stuff, and I tried to cut myself. Now, is that the interesting part?
Kate: No. Now, right now, I want to know the acutely bad things.
Dese’Rae: Right. It’s an abusive relationship; it’s trauma; it’s years of depression. It’s a breakup with someone who is manipulative, someone who I could not get away from and didn’t really want to. So that’s the interesting part to me, because I want to dig into why people make decisions. That’s the interesting part—it’s about reframing the suicide story to be about the person’s life, not just about their death.