I was certain this had to be the case, but I decided to look it up to make sure. And, yes, our current 2025 suicide rate is the highest it has been since 1941.
People are very down. Let’s say, up and down, because millions of folks do not want to succumb to the darkness of this moment. They are opting to be as cheerful as they can be, as an act of defiance and because they do now want to throw in the towel.
But that cheerfulness does not last. After it passes, the deepest blues we have experienced since Hitler overran Europe confounds us. One number I saw: there are 740,000 suicides annually, or one every 43 seconds. And can you imagine what the number is of folks who think about suicide?
Well, here are those numbers: in 2024, 13.2 million Americans thoughts about suicide, 3.8 million made a plan for suicide, and 1.6 million attempted suicide. Dark thoughts are no stranger to millions and millions of our friends, neighbors and loved ones. Life is getting people seriously down.
What this means, among other things, is that we need some special readiness to counter those thoughts and feelings in ourselves and some special readiness to notice when our loved ones have sunk past mere blues to some very dark place.
The short way to say this is, let us not be surprised. Let us cultivate that small voice, that small, crucial voice that whispers, “Tomorrow will be better” and “Watch out, you are sinking very far” and “Say something to your son, his darkness is darker than mere angst.”
That small voice is not surprised that we and our loved ones can plummet all the way down. It knows how hard it is to live in pain. It knows how hard it is to live without prospects. It knows how hard it is to spend all day, every day, barely teasing out rent money. It knows how hard it is tolerate all the losses we are witnessing and experiencing: losses of intimacy, of personal efficacy, of democracy.
Is that small voice enough to save us? Quite likely not. We may need lots more help, from the professional to the lay. But that small voice is there to rally us and our loved ones and it matters. It is the voice of—what, exactly? Hope? Not precisely. Rebellion? Yes, certainly. Love? Absolutely.
Whatever its source, its roots are as ancient as despair’s. Can you hear it? Let it ring loudly, even though it is only whispering. Living on the brink, as we are, this is a moment to be very watchful, very careful, and very loving.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
