What can we do about taboo? Keeping mental health and suicide in the dark is killing young people

Taboo condemns us to ignorance and to repeat our failures through a lack of understanding. Photograph: On Mute by Katie Tegtmeyer on Flickr (License) (Cropped)

It is the mark of a free society that it tackles difficult questions openly. It braves the scrutiny of public debate for those matters that might otherwise have been hidden and emerges the wiser for it.

The closed and stifling world of taboo, by contrast, keeps uncomfortable matters closeted away, where it can ignore them. In doing so, however, there comes the greater risk of not understanding them.

In few areas is this more damaging than when it comes mental health. The stigma and discrimination, and the shame that follows, keeps mental health, and not least suicide, from being understood - preventing effective disclosure, diagnosis and treatment in the light of reason.

And this is no small matter. According to World Health Organisation numbers, by 2014, 800,000 people died by suicide each year. That is a huge number of people dying in a manner that is not widely understood, because taboo keeps it in the dark.

These taboos touch on every aspect of our lives and not least upon the lives of young people. In 2014, suicide was the second most prevalent cause of death amongst those aged 15-29 (Baker & CNN, 2014).

In the UK, the impact of suicide is even more profound. For Britain it is the number one cause of death amongst young people - in 2014, 1,556 young people under the age of 35 ended their lives. Even that number belies the reality.

Indeed, PAPYRUS believes these figures are the tip of the iceberg. In the UK, suicide has not been a crime since 1961, yet the law demands that coroners use the criminal standard of proof to conclude that a death was a suicide.

One of the frightening things about taboo is that, because it discourages open discussion or admission, it also hides the reality. All of this adds up, and the true number of lives lost to suicide is likely to be higher and attempts higher still.

Talking about suicide does not cause suicide and censoring discussion doesn't stop it. Rather, taboo and its inhibitions prevents what could be lifesaving communication.

The deaths of so many young people has sparked campaigns and led to the creation of organisations, like PAPYRUS in the UK, to help support young people and those close to them in order to prevent suicide.

The question is, how do we start the work of breaking up these damaging taboos?

The start comes in changing our own behaviour. By doing so, we can slowly reshape the world around us with our actions. The first step in that process is to talk.

In the UK, attitudes are clearly changing for the better. Articles pointing out the dangers of mental health taboos are appearing in popular media (Harvey-Jenner, 2016) and celebrities are taking to TV to talk personally about suicide (Ruby, 2015).

The very real momentum can also be seen gathering behind the push to put mental health on parity with physical health. Along with the advocacy of former Health minister Norman Lamb, progressive opinion has aligned with campaign (Perraudin, 2016).

The time has come for mental health to come out of the shadows. It's time for us to face the reality of suicide. Taboos only shut down reasoned debate, block discussion and understanding, and endanger lives.

If you are a young person having thoughts of suicide or if you are concerned that a young person make be at risk, please contact HopeLineUK, which is PAPYRUS’ confidential advice and support service. Call 0800 068 41 41, or Email pat@papyrus-uk.org or Text 07786 209697.

References

Statistics courtesy of PAPYRUS.

Sue Baker's 'Breaking the taboo: It's time to talk about mental health'; from the director of Time to Change; on CNN; 10 October 2014.

Catriona Harvey-Jenner's 'Why we need to STOP treating mental health as such a taboo: "Surely talking about our minds should be just as easy as talking about our genitals"'; in Cosmopolitan; 4 February 2016.

Jennifer Ruby's 'Professor Green makes emotional plea to break suicide 'taboo' on Newsnight'; in the Evening Standard; 28 October 2015.

Frances Perraudin's 'Mental health services turn away 23% of under-18s referred to them:New research finds some services deny support to those with anorexia unless their BMI is below a certain threshold'; in The Guardian; 11 April 2016.