Dear Anderson Cooper,
You don’t know me and I don’t know you, but we do share something in common. We are both survivors of suicide loss. In 1988 you lost your brother Carter to suicide and 17 months ago, on April 20, 2015, I lost my father.
In just a few days you will join Martha Raddatz at Washington University in St. Louis, to moderate the 2nd Presidential Debate of 2016. This is a chance to speak to some of the biggest challenges that our country is facing, and open up a dialogue with each candidate as to how they might solve those issues, or at the very least, tackle them in such a way as to make a meaningful difference. And so, as a fellow survivor of suicide loss, I am asking you to raise the issue of suicide.
Every day it is estimated that we lose 117 people to suicide; people like your brother and my father. And every 12.3 minutes in this nation another family is left to navigate the painful aftermath that your family and mine has had to face. You understand better than most in the media, that every person who dies by suicide is more than a statistic; they are parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends and neighbors.
The most recent federal data analysis tell us that suicide rates in the United States have surged to a 30 year high. The same research showed an alarming increase in suicide among girls 10 to 14, whose suicide rate, while still very low, had tripled. The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, rose by 63 percent over the course of the study, while it increased by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. And men over the age of 75 have the highest suicide rate of any age group.
Add to that the fact that we lose 20 veterans a day to suicide and that the suicide rate among female veterans is six times higher than the rate of non-veteran women.
Anderson, these are statistics, numbers, and they are staggering to say the least. But they are so much more than that. These are the casualties of a war that is being fought in the dark. These are deaths so often cloaked in shame, stigma and silence, that those of us left to grieve a suicide loss, often find ourselves feeling alone and isolated in the experience. But you can help to change that.
Don’t you think it is time that we shine a national spotlight on the realities of suicide loss, Anderson? Don’t you think it is time that any conversation about our nation’s healthcare include issues of mental health and suicide prevention? Isn’t it time that we normalize those conversations as part of our national dialogue? And I might add, isn’t it time to change the discourse in the media and on the campaign trail when it comes to the language we use, being mindful not to belittle and further stigmatize those living with mental illness?
It’s been 17 months since I lost my father to suicide. And not a day has gone by, where I have not tried to make some meaning come from his death. I have shared my story openly in the hopes that doing so can help spare another family the pain that mine has endured, a pain you are intimately acquainted with.
You told People magazine, in a March 31, 2016 interview that your brother’s suicide had a definite impact on your career.
“I started going overseas and going to places where life and death was very real and where people were suffering tremendous losses. Hearing their stories and hearing people talk about it sort of helped me to get to a place where I could talk about it, I think.”
This Sunday night, with millions of people watching, you have the chance to further the conversation about suicide in this country. The suffering of those who die by suicide is very real and families like yours and mine are living with tremendous loss. You’ve learned to talk about it, and so have I. So let’s use what we have endured to make a difference. Let’s talk about it. Let’s ask our nation’s potential leadership to talk about it. The spotlight is yours to shine, as a fellow survivor, I hope you will use it.
Sincerely Yours,
Deborah Greene
[…] An Open Letter to Anderson Cooper from a Fellow Survivor of Suicide Loss was written by Deborah Greene. If you would like to read more by Deborah, head over to Reflecting Out Loud, where she writes more about life and suicide. […]
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I’ve just read Anderson and his mother Gloria’s book which references the impact of the losses of her husband, and Anderson’s Dad, Wyatt, and of Carter, to suicide. That prompted me to go further, to Anderson’ story of the beginnings of his career in the toughest realm of journalism. I highly recommend both to those who are struggling with loss.
At the recent Out of the Darkness Walk in Richmond Va, we were honored to hear the call to action from Senator Creigh Deeds, whose story of the loss of his son Gus. His call to action was compelling. Creigh has taken this personal tragedy forward to drive change within the mental health system, and to charge us all with personal accountability to prevent suicide.
Please read his story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/va-sen-creigh-deeds-sues-the-state-others-for-6-million-in-sons-suicide/2016/01/05/1dfb4500-b3d9-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html.
I believe that you can read pain and loss in another’s eyes–we saw Creigh’s sorrow and the light of his personal mission. His open and heartfelt entreaty was to take every action to connect and stop suicide–one : one, in our caring community and in our greater society.
Thanks, Deborah, for your timely letter to Anderson.
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I watched the documentary of them Nothing Left Unsaid and found it so powerful especially when they talked about those very losses and spoke with such honesty about Carter’s suicide. And I thank you for sharing with me about Senator Deeds story as well. Those in public positions have great power to turn their experiences with suicide into a vehicle for fundamental change. I hope that more of them will do so, and I hope my words will reach Anderson Cooper and that he will shine a national spotlight on this topic Sunday night.
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