FireEMS Blogs: Talking About Suicide

In the very first week of November  in 1993, a week I remember well, a fellow responder of mine put a bullet in his head.  He, along with many of my friends, were supposed to be at my wedding.  He and I were not particularly close anymore, as he worked at the department I first worked at (my complicated work history doesn’t require retelling here).  When I saw him on occasion, I didn’t detect any sadness or anguish. Maybe his feet were like the proverbial duck, paddling like mad beneath the surface, while maintaining his composure for all of us to see.  But still, I felt close enough that I consider he would have reached out to me. We had a warm, friendly, funny relationship at work, but we weren’t drinking buddies or anything.  Still, he had on more than one occasion told me that he looked up to me as an officer and appreciated my style of leadership. When you have that kind of relationship, you’d think people might turn to you when things are piling up in their lives. I guess that would be an incorrect assumption.

There have been any number of articles recently on suicide among first responders. I have been following some of the cases lately, and wonder what could have been done to prevent this option from ever being put on the table. I have had other friends commit suicide before, two friends while I was in high school, one as I grew older. One of the high school era friends was actually not a fellow student, but a friend of my mother’s boyfriend at the time. He called the house looking for Scott and I didn’t know where he was (this is the era before cell phones). From all accounts, I was the last person to speak to him, but he didn’t betray what he was getting ready to do. I wish I had known- maybe there would have been something I could have said, some way to reassure him that there were other options.

I won’t deny thinking at some particularly low points in my life, that suicide was a potential option. There is a difference between considering it as an option, though, and deciding it is a viable one. I guess anything within your reach is an option, if you really look at it. Not necessarily a wise option, not necessarily a sane option, but an option nonetheless. Maybe, like any other problem, you have to acknowledge it as an option and rationally decide that it isn’t suitable. When you are desperate and lonely and things keep piling on, it might seem that it is so, but things tend to take a turn, one way or another. They don’t always get better and maybe that’s the only remaining option.

Read More of “Reaching Out — Talking About Suicide to Prevent It” from Firehouse Zen