Language Matters
You are not alone – let’s talk about suicidal ideation
Reducing stigma lets us speak, assess risk, and seek support.
Jessica Ward-King
You are not alone – let’s talk about suicidal ideation
I’m going to go to a bit of a dark place, and I would invite you to follow me there because it is important. I have had (and the way bipolar disorder goes so cyclically, likely will have again) suicidal ideation, and I would like to tell you what it is like. I’ve never told anyone this before, but I would like to tell you this now because of suicide awareness day, which is commemorated each September 10 in honour of all those who have died by suicide and those living with suicide attempts or suicidal ideation and their loved ones.
Lived Experience
Back on the road to recovery
A sudden pothole wrecked my car—and my night. That’s how mental illness feels: an abrupt derailment, unlike mental health’s routine “maintenance.” Self-care helps, but breakdowns need professional repair, time, and often money.
We hesitate to mention mental health and 2SLGBTQIA+ in the same breath
It took me a long time to tell my Catholic parents that I am a lesbian. I remember coming home from university one Christmas with my heart in my throat. This was going to be the time. I wanted to do it over the phone so that I wouldn’t have to see their faces, so that I could hang up and cry into my pillow, but I couldn’t do that to them.
Lived Experience
We hesitate to mention mental health and 2SLGBTQIA+ in the same breath
Related Articles Rethinking masculinity to end gender-based violence Read more Related Articles “Unmasking” is the theme for this year’s Mental Health Week – meaning to
Lived Experience
Peer support changed my life
Terrified to be seen, I slipped into my first peer-support meeting—and found coffee, clutter, and acceptance.
I didn’t imagine that mental health was affected by the colour of one’s skin. I was wrong.
As a white woman, my culture is slowly moving towards an acceptance of mental health and an understanding of mental illness while persons – particularly men – of colour still struggle under the weight of unbearable cultural stigma.
I didn’t imagine that mental health was affected by the colour of one’s skin. I was wrong.
As a white woman, I once overlooked how race shapes care. My wife and son of colour face withheld trust, pain bias, harsher stigma, microaggressions, and scarce, overburdened services. I’ve learned mental health isn’t separate from skin colour; privilege cushions some, while systemic barriers bruise others—often across generations.
See me as a person, not a diagnosis
When someone says, “you’re so brave” (as they do all the time) all I hear is that to them, my life is pitiful, and I feel diminished and reduced to my diagnosis. It makes me think of an after school special on “never giving up” (remember those cheesy posters from the eighties and nineties with a cat hanging on a rope? Yeah, that.)
