Recently in my life, topics on mental health and suicide have been coming up more often than usual, and I’m not afraid to say that it’s really daunting. Suicide Prevention Month in September has already passed, but that shouldn’t stop us from acknowledging it at any other time of the year. There are times when our communities are rattled with the heartbreaking realization that these topics are being spread for a reason, for awareness, and for reassurance, and we should not be forced into silence because of them.
In 2013, Abby Bluel founded Project Semicolon after her father’s passing by suicide ten years prior. In April, she asked social media users to draw a semicolon on their wrists to symbolize that “a sentence wasn’t over yet, and neither was their life.” This was the start of a community of all types of people- men and women, young and old, of all different backgrounds- who were fighting for themselves and for others. Bluel wanted to end the shame that society would push onto those who were struggling with their own mental health. On the project’s official page, she said, “I wanted to start a conversation that can’t be stopped,” and seeing as the image and meaning of the semicolon is still alive and growing to this day, I think she has.Â
Abby Bluel began struggling with her own mental health as a freshly-turned teenager; her father died to suicide, and fourteen years later, she too would give in to the same ending. Although her goal was to spread awareness and lower the numbers, her own battle could not be won, but that shouldn’t bruise the image of the semicolon for all its supporters. Sometimes it’s simply easier to help others than to help yourself, and we see that through Bluel’s own journey. The members of this movement still remain to support one another, to spread awareness, and to provide help and encouragement when you may not be able to help yourself.
Bluel altered the perspective behind mental health and suicide awareness. She created a community in which members could recognize the struggles of others just by identifying the semicolon and geared the focus of the semicolon towards achieving lower suicide rates overall. This widespread acknowledgment would encourage others to speak up about their own personal struggles and to be comfortable seeking help when they need it. The outdated idea that mental health, depression, and suicide should be silenced was overpowered by a crowd of people who wanted to do the exact opposite, because there is always something to be done.
These issues are seen everywhere, whether it be in yourself, someone you know, or maybe someone you may not even realize is struggling. According to the CDC, the United States is in a mental health crisis. Death from suicide has doubled from 2000 to 2017, and is still on the rise. It is the second leading cause of death for Americans aged ten to twenty-four, totaling 15% of all suicides.
There are people out there who simply don’t believe in mental health issues. You might have the belief that nobody around you is affected by these numbers. Maybe you never thought you’d know someone going through, or who went through, these struggles. But I bet you’d be wrong. I sure never thought I’d be experiencing a loss connected to these issues, but then again, we probably all think that until it happens.
A man in my community passed away recently. The following Monday, I was reading a peer’s essay and a haunting, singular sentence on a blank, white page screamed out to me:
“Men die by suicide at a rate four times higher than women.”
Griffith, Derek M., et al. “Men and Mental Health: What Are We Missing?” AAMC, 2 Apr. 2024, www.aamc.org/news/men-and-mental-health-what-are-we-missing#:~:text=By%20Derek%20M.,Why%20is%20this?Â
Within three days, two different scenarios, and two different people, I was exposed to the mental health crisis in America, and it won’t stop there. One suicide. Another coming forward demanding awareness. As a women’s collegiate magazine, it is obvious that we here at Her Campus aim to support and uplift our fellow women in our communities, but society as a whole fails to do that for its men and their mental health, and I believe we can be better.
Times like these are when the semicolon project makes the most sense to me. It has always existed in the back of my mind. I knew what it was, I supported the cause, and I’ve even known people with it tattooed on their skin. But during a time when you never thought it would affect you, and then it does, you realize just how much more this crisis should be talked about. How many more diagnosed depressions or documented suicides will there be before we, as a society, stop brushing it to the side? These were never just numbers aiming to be lowered; they were our friends’, classmates’, neighbors’, and family’s lives begging to be taken seriously. The mental health crisis doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, so just as it started eleven years ago, the semicolon will live on, just as Abby Bluel would have wanted.