Why is there so much shame around suicide?

We have to tackle shame one conversation at a time.

The shame is around not being educated and around fear. Also in there is our fear of death, our fear of failure, our fear of medication, of counseling. There’s this male generated society that thinks you have to put up a face and you have to handle everything “like a man”.

We’re stuck because there’s mental illness and no education around it. When you hear someone is on meds because they’re schizophrenic, you immediately think differently about that person. When you hear someone is bipolar, you’re more prone to judge their behavior. We’re a very instant gratification and judgmental society. People are judging before they’re educated.

I can only speak for the context and culture I come from. Over the last couple of thousand years, the bible has been interpreted to say that people who end their own life will be tortured for infinity, aka, burn in hell. The more we come to understand trauma (unprocessed pain), which is of course at the root of suicide, the less we will be able to adhere to archaic ideas about eternal punishment for people who are hurting the most.