Why Doctors Believe You Shouldn’t Say Committed Suicide Anymore

You might look at someone and think they seem to be at the peak of health. They may appear vigorous and energetic. Appearances can be deceiving, though, and that person might not be in the best mental or psychological shape.

Mental health definitely matters just as much as physical, but if someone isn’t doing so well in that department, they might do a good job of concealing it. They might even be suicidal, and the people closest to them might not be aware. If they take their own life, that can stun everyone around them, from their work colleagues to their partner or spouse.

In the past, if that happened, many individuals might have used the expression “this person committed suicide.” In 2021, some mental health professionals say that we should no longer use the phrase. It’s essential to understand why.

What’s So Bad About This Phrase?

When you think about it, the phrase “committed suicide” might seem innocuous. It has existed for many decades, and most people use it without even thinking about it. Mental health professionals, though, worry that it has some negative connotations.

Anyone can be suicidal, and they might use many different means to kill themselves. For instance, they could swallow pills. In 2002 alone, 2.4 million toxic ingestions took place. Some pills are so harmful to children that consuming a single one can kill them.

If you say that a person committed suicide, though, it sounds a lot like they committed a crime. For instance, we also use the phrase “commit murder.” We say “commit adultery” as well.

The Stigma Around Suicide and Mental Health Issues

The fact remains that there’s a stigma around mental health issues in society that’s hard to shake. If someone is grappling with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and so forth, it’s easy for someone on the outside who’s not experiencing any of it to say, “can you just stop feeling that way?”

Recently, tennis star Naomi Osaka withdrew from a major tournament because she felt that the media sessions and the questions reporters asked her were too much. During the pandemic’s height, several basketball players talked about how they struggled mentally living in a bubble from which they could not leave.

It can be challenging keeping track of the people we love and making sure they’re doing okay mentally and emotionally. If society were more accepting of mental struggles, then many individuals would probably feel more able to speak about what they were going through with family members, friends, or even licensed mental health professionals.

The Suicide Issue Going Forward

As it stands, the language we use to talk about mental health, and certainly something as insidious as suicide, remains a talking point that therapists and doctors continue to emphasise. They want to eliminate phrases like “committed suicide” from the mainstream vernacular. We can replace them with phrases like “this person took their own life” or “they died by suicide.”

Dying by suicide sounds a lot more reasonable because we also say things like, “this person died of a gunshot wound.” It’s a small thing and seemingly inconsequential, but it might make more of a difference than you’d think.

The reason why it’s vital to talk about this sort of thing right now is that society is dealing with an unprecedented mental health crisis, even now as the pandemic is more under control than it has been in more than a year. Many individuals needed to isolate themselves for months, and lots of them could not see their family and friends like they usually could.

So many people had to miss holidays, both religious and secular. Others might have liked working from home at first, but within a few months, they began to miss interacting with their coworkers at the office. Students could not meet for in-person classes, so it was hard on them as well.

It’s difficult to know how badly off some people are now, even though the vaccines have brought us close to returning to things as they once were. One thing that each person can do, though, is both watch how they talk about suicide and not make it a shameful subject, and they can listen if their friends and family members want to speak to them.

We’re at a point where we can probably save many lives if we don’t ignore what people say when they reveal that they’re not doing so well from a mental standpoint.