In the past, many so­ci­eties and re­li­gions con­sid­ered sui­cide to be a crime and a moral wrong­do­ing. And up un­til to­day, sui­cide is still com­mon­ly spo­ken of as a “self­ish act” be­cause, os­ten­si­bly, the per­son who died did not con­sid­er the feel­ings of the ones they left be­hind.

Grow­ing up in the Catholic teach­ing at home, school and church, I learned that sui­cide was con­sid­ered a mor­tal sin. I over­heard my par­ents once talk­ing about a per­son who died by sui­cide and was de­nied a church bur­ial or of­fi­ci­at­ing by the church. I learned that such a per­son was con­demned to damna­tion and that if they had sur­vived the at­tempt, they would have been ban­ished from the church com­mu­ni­ty.

I re­mem­ber when I heard about the po­lice ar­rest­ing some­one who at­tempt­ed to end their life by sui­cide. That did not make sense to a child. I kept think­ing that per­son need­ed to go to the hos­pi­tal, not the po­lice sta­tion. It would take decades be­fore I un­der­stood the ba­sis for ei­ther of these.

Thank­ful­ly, in that time, es­tab­lished re­li­gions and Bible-teach­ing faith have been tak­ing a more com­pas­sion­ate view on sui­cide, recog­nis­ing it as a hu­man tragedy and an in­ci­dent of deep emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal suf­fer­ing.

Even so, be­cause sui­cide does not yet en­joy wide­spread dis­cours­es nor is it a “pul­pit” sub­ject, I have found many peo­ple still car­ry the views of my ear­li­er life. And as well, some re­li­gions still count this act as moral or spir­i­tu­al fail­ing, in­ter­pret­ed as the break­ing of spir­i­tu­al law.

Re­gard­ing the crim­i­nal as­pect, I know too that T&T is among just over 20 na­tions world­wide that count sui­cide as a crim­i­nal of­fence un­der colo­nial-era laws. In the re­gion, our ju­ris­dic­tion is among on­ly four that still re­gard sui­cide as a crim­i­nal act rather than a men­tal health is­sue or cri­sis.

The lan­guage that sup­ports this ar­cha­ic think­ing talks about peo­ple “com­mit­ting” sui­cide, a phrase still com­mon­ly used by the me­dia, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, peo­ple in every sphere, and (es­pe­cial­ly new­er) ad­vo­cates.

Sui­cide, as we have come to un­der­stand and ac­cept, is a com­plex pub­lic health is­sue re­quir­ing ac­tions, in­ter­ven­tion, and lan­guage that says we un­der­stand the mag­ni­tude of the pain and trau­ma peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence.

The phrase “com­mit sui­cide” is in the sphere of de­scrip­tions for oth­er crim­i­nal of­fences like “com­mit­ting a crime” or “com­mit­ting mur­der.” When we use the phrase “com­mit­ted sui­cide,” we re­in­force the out­mod­ed law and judge­men­tal view.

Stig­ma­tis­ing views like the crim­i­nal­i­ty of sui­cide in­crease the bur­den borne by sur­vivors and sur­viv­ing fam­i­lies, rel­a­tives, friends, and com­mu­ni­ty. These work to iso­late peo­ple who are al­ready in dis­tress and in need of sup­port, kind­ness, and com­pan­ion­ship, and may de­ter them from reach­ing out to seek help.

The whole goal of ad­vo­ca­cy and out­reach must be in­tent on re­duc­ing hu­man suf­fer­ing, “be­friend­ing the de­spair­ing and sui­ci­dal,” ac­cord­ing to life­linett.com. The fo­cus on some­one’s sui­ci­dal death must be to un­der­stand their demise is not pun­ish­ment, shame or dis­grace for them or those left be­hind, but is an act re­sult­ing from the pain and de­spair the in­di­vid­ual faced.

Sarah Moore, LM­SW, MI Mind Clin­i­cal Qual­i­ty Im­prove­ment Train­er, writes, “Lan­guage sub­tly re­flects our own at­ti­tudes and in­flu­ences, even when we don’t in­tend to com­mu­ni­cate them.

“Lan­guage that takes the blame for sui­cide away from the pa­tient and aligns it with oth­er health con­di­tions de­creas­es the stig­ma that comes with men­tal health con­di­tions. The term “com­mit­ted sui­cide” goes back to when sui­cide was con­sid­ered il­le­gal and im­moral, as­so­ci­at­ing it with com­mit­ting mur­der or adul­tery.”

Pre­ferred al­ter­na­tives

The phrase “com­mit­ted sui­cide” is dis­cour­aged be­cause of its his­tor­i­cal un­der­pin­ning. Men­tal health ex­perts and sui­cide pre­ven­tion ad­vo­ca­cy or­gan­i­sa­tions pro­mote more com­pas­sion­ate and ac­cu­rate lan­guage to re­duce stig­ma and en­cour­age peo­ple to seek help as part of a broad­er ef­fort to pri­ori­tise em­pa­thy and un­der­stand­ing.

Us­ing more com­pas­sion­ate ter­mi­nol­o­gy in­flu­ences how we per­ceive and dis­cuss sen­si­tive is­sues and helps to cre­ate a more sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment for those af­fect­ed by sui­cide.

Men­tal health ad­vo­cates rec­om­mend us­ing neu­tral, fact-based lan­guage that does not car­ry judge­ment, such as:

• Died by sui­cide

• End­ed their life

• Sui­cide death

• Sui­cide at­tempt

As we change the nar­ra­tive and open con­ver­sa­tions about sui­cide, Moore, from her ex­pe­ri­ence with pa­tients, ad­vo­cates for a straight­for­ward ap­proach when talk­ing about sui­cide.

She says, “In­stead of buffer­ing the top­ic with vague lan­guage, be di­rect. Ask the pa­tient, ‘Have you thought about killing your­self?’ in­stead of soft­er terms, like harm­ing or hurt­ing your­self.”

To­day, is World Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Day (WSPD), ob­served world­wide un­der the tri­en­ni­al theme “Chang­ing the Nar­ra­tive on Sui­cide” (2024–2026). This theme prompts us to take ac­tion to re­duce stig­ma, chal­lenge harm­ful myths, and fos­ter open, com­pas­sion­ate con­ver­sa­tions about sui­cide.

WSPD was es­tab­lished in 2003 by the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion, in part­ner­ship with the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion. Each year on Sep­tem­ber 10, WSPD fo­cus­es glob­al at­ten­tion on sui­cide pre­ven­tion, unit­ing com­mu­ni­ties, or­gan­i­sa­tions, and gov­ern­ments with the shared be­lief that sui­cides are pre­ventable (who.int).