This is a highly sensitive post. Feel free to comment or submit a blog post and provide your thoughts on the topic.
I saw you… Harvard, fiercely unwilling to use the word suicide. As students, scholars, and human beings, we deserve the right to have a productive, honest conversation about mental health here. If that means using the word suicide, then so be it. Harvard should respect us enough to be willing to engage in a deeper, more meaningful conversation. It should value its students and their mental health. It should invest in providing better services and making sure they are available when students are in need. We as members of the community should work together to let mental health into our everyday conversations, and remove the stigma from mental health problems—it is really hard to make it through this crazy place without suffering. Yet the impetus is on our school to demonstrate its willingness to discuss, prevent, and work to stop suicides before they happen. Come on, Harvard. It’s time to stop saving face and start acting with compassion. Hit up the reply box if you agree and want to be a part of a movement to open doors to conversation, and make Harvard a better place for all of us.