World Mental Health Day: When talking about suicide, avoid using these words

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website. “When we’re stigmatizing those aspects of mental health, and then those individuals don’t get help,” Klich added, “very often, that’s the slippery slope into some of the key factors that wind up increasing risk for death by suicide.” Stigmatizing language about suicide can also cement ideas that people who attempted or died by suicide, when compared with everyone else, are broken, disabled, less than or different in some way, experts said. Thomas Joiner’s 2007 book “Why People Die by Suicide” also helped facilitate understanding about the issue, Klich said. “We want to not do that — we want to help work towards improved outcomes and quality of life.” Use these words when referring to suicide Given these factors, to eliminate stigma and judgment, the preferred language “is ‘died by suicide,’ ‘someone died of a heart attack or stroke,’” Baker said. And when referring to someone who didn’t die from a suicide attempt, acceptable shorthand ways to say that include “nonfatal suicide attempt” or simply “suicide attempt.” Another commonly used, but misguided, phrase is that suicide is a “selfish act.” Characterizing suicide as “selfish” has derogatory connotations because it implies the person did it for a pleasurable reason, when in reality, people who attempt or die by suicide more often want to end their pain or see themselves as burdensome, clinical psychologist Michael Roeske told CNN in 2021.