Openness about suicide helps those considering it and people who love them

Christopher Daharsh was dead and his wife and mother didn't know what to say.

"Are we going to tell people what happened?" asked Debbie Daharsh, who had discovered her son's body hanging lifeless in a Dallas, Texas, warehouse.

The 25-year-old killed himself just a few weeks after the sudden accidental death of his father in 2009.

The two women sat in the back seat of a car sorting out the decisions they suddenly had to make. Christopher's wife, Brylee, said she didn't want people to remember him only as a man who died from suicide; on the other hand, she didn't want to lie.

"I didn't want to, either," Daharshsaid. "And so we decided at that time that we were going to just tell people that he took his own life."

A growing number of people are deciding against hiding the tragedy behind a loved one's death. As many as 36,000 Americans a year end their own life. And more and more, survivors are going public as a way to take some of the mystery out of suicide, hoping to prevent it from happening to someone else.

Daharsh found support at first by talking about Christopher's death with people who had a relative die of suicide. But she's also been open with others.

"It's absolutely amazing the number of people who have been touched by suicide," said Daharsh, of St. Petersburg. "If I can … keep one family from going through this tragedy, then I've been successful."

Sharing her experience opened Daharsh's eyes to the link between suicide and mental illness. Christopher's emotions were always super-high or super-low, but he was only treated once for depression, at the end of his high school career. Counselors told her the crisis was isolated.

"He was so good at hiding it. I had no clue," she said.

An average of 16,000 people a year call Hillsborough County's suicide prevention hotline, operated by the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay. Callers vary from teens questioning their sexual identity to elderly widowers who feel isolated from the world. Increasingly, middle-aged men and women who have lost their jobs or face home foreclosure are calling for help.

And still 170 to 200 county residents are expected to succeed in killing themselves this year. Hillsborough County reported 199 cases of suicide in 2009.

No one is immune from the risk of suicidal thoughts or actions, though those struggling with a mental illness are at more profound risk, said Antoinette Cillo, manager of prevention and intervention services at the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.

Estimates show that as many as 90 percent of the people who die from suicide dealt with a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental disorder.

"Some people don't even know they are depressed because they've never been diagnosed," she said.

In 2009, more than 520,000 Floridians seriously considered suicide, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That same year, 53,000 residents in the state attempted to kill themselves.

Talking openly and treating depression, bipolar disorder and other mental illness should be seen as a form of suicide prevention, Cillo said. It's a far better solution than dismissing the mentally ill as people who simply can't control their emotions.

"We need to be out loud, we need to be making a stink about (mental illness)," Cillo said.

True, the stigma surrounding mental illness has decreased in the past 30 years, and more people are comfortable discussing treatment or the taking of anti-depressant drugs. But stereotypes do persist, and many people still perceive mental illness to be a character deficiency and not a disease.

"Between 20 and 30 percent of people will suffer from depression. … A lot of the illness tends to go on behind doors, which, unfortunately, only exacerbates things, because there is a real lack of support," said Jamie Winderbaum Fernandez, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of South Florida.

The scientific community's interest in mental illness is playing a significant role in breaking down stereotypes about suicide. Research into the brain in particular is helping explain that mental illness is not a problem "to gut out and get over," but a disease that can be managed with appropriate treatment.

"People don't realize mental disorders are diseases," said Lynn Wecker, a distinguished pharmacology professor at the USF College of Medicine. "… It's so important for people (to know) that these are diseases that have a biochemical and molecular basis. And they are treatable, but people still have the stigma that they are not."

Raising money for research into suicide and mental illness is behind a series of high-profile awareness walks taking place this fall across the Tampa Bay area. Called "Out of the Darkness" walks, they offer surviving friends and family members an opportunity to publicly remember loved ones who died of suicide.

Daharsh and her son Michael led a walk with more than 100 participants last month in St. Petersburg. The Tampa walk will be held Saturday.

"I think it's important in the healing process to talk about it and to not be ashamed. … It is to give the opportunity to other people to be educated and to know and to feel free enough to open up," Daharsh said.

Talking about your own mental illness isn't that simple when you're worried about losing a job, friends or family, said Scott Barnett, a Tampa resident who was diagnosed with clinical depression in 1989.

"Remember that in history, people with mental illness were tried and burned as witches," said Barnett, who now serves as executive director of the advocacy group Mental Health America of Tampa Bay.

Society's stereotypes transfer to people living with mental illness and suicidal thoughts. The uninformed equate the disease with people "living under a bridge," said John Massolio, founder of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Tampa Bay.

"None of us asked for this illness," said Massalio, who was an executive in Chicago when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The Alliance offers seven confidential support groups each week to any person diagnosed with bipolar disorder or depression, or their family and friends. It's common for at least one person in each meeting to be battling suicidal thoughts.

"They seek out the confidentiality of the group," said group facilitator John Balcomb. "You can say things in there you can't talk about outside that door."

Typically, suicide prevention programs focus on education, such as listing the warning signs that a person may harm themselves. That's great, but Cillo said the public also can help by de-stigmatizing antidepressant medications, and encourage friends or family with mental illness to seek clinical and therapeutic treatment.

She said it's critical that friends and family stay connected and help keep those at risk from growing isolated in an increasingly solitary and anonymous cyber-centric society.

"It's natural for people to shy away from something that hurts," Cillo said. "If you do, then the pain that hurts for someone else just hurts even more."

Treatment is a very real way to prevent suicide. The Crisis Center this year launched a prevention program that aimed to intervene in 70 suicide threats. In the first nine months, they've been able to direct more than 300 suicide hotline calls to resources, including mental health counseling.

Barnett said this help doesn't translate into a cure. It's a lifelong challenge to live with a diagnosed mental illness that involves regular treatment, just like any other chronic medical condition, like high blood pressure. That's the real message of suicide prevention, he said.

"If you're limping and all of the sudden your foot hurts, and you don't know a reason why, you go to a doctor and check it out, because you don't want the pain and you don't want it to get worse," Barnett said.

The same holds true for mental anguish.

"Go get treated, get diagnosed. … Don't walk around with a limp," he said. "Don't walk around with a broken leg."

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‘Analysis of Depression’

Christopher Daharsh’s ‘Analysis of Depression’

Clinical depression and other mental illnesses increase a person’s risk for suicide, but it often goes untreated or undiagnosed.

Debbie Daharsh’s son Christopher visited a counselor for situational depression as a teen, but resisted long-term counseling and treatment. It was after his death at age 25 that his mother discovered the depth of his depression through his own creative writing.

A collection of poems Christopher Daharsh wrote at age 16 has provided his mother and others a glimpse into the emotional pain he experienced on a daily basis. Here is an excerpt from one poem, called “Analysis of Depression.”

But oh my soul I lay so pale,

In my bed ever still.

Darkness now prevailing o’er,

My night here once again.

Not fully was it thrust on me,

For glimpse is all it was,

But glimpse enough for me to see,

A glimpse of horrid hell.

The morning comes and I am sad,

For what! For what! I cry.

Sensing that my curse was nigh,

I rolled and then I cried.”

Poem courtesy of Debbie Daharsh