TW: suicide
It's World Suicide Prevention Month and this year's theme is "changing the narrative on suicide". I found this problematic, not because there isn't a dire need, but for two reasons. For one, 'raising awareness' appears futile without (social, if not political) change. Also, I believe the term itself enables and reinforces the stigma it aims to eradicate.
Earlier this year, I began examining whether the word 'suicide' influenced its stigma. It stems from the Latin suicidium (sui - "of oneself" and caedere - "to kill") and replaced the far more accusatory 'self-murder.' The term 'suicide' had become established in the English language by the mid-18th century, resonating with earlier terms like suicist and suicism which were rooted in notions of selfishness—a prejudice that persists today.
Today, the term 'suicide' has false associations of despair and futility and failure with ending one's life. The stigma is unsurprising considering how the '-cide' suffix in suicide ostensibly aligns with words like homicide, infanticide, and genocide, which all denote murder rather than mere death.
Catherine Ruff provides some useful perspectives on individuals who ended their lives during the Stoic era. At first glance, Stoicism appears at odds with suicide through its teachings of resilience, dignified endurance of hardships, and apatheia. Yet, Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, strangled himself to death. Similarly, historical literature has depicted self-inflicted deaths without stigma, and in some instances, as acts of heroism: from biblical Saul to Shakespeare's Ophelia. Similarly, Cato the Younger, Socrates, Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony's deaths were viewed as acts of martyrdom.
It's worth asking what has since changed and why. I believe it's for two reasons.
On one level, I suppose the moral condemnation intensified with the rise of Christianity and other Abrahamic religions. By framing life as sacred and suffering as redemptive, taking one's own life became (viewed) not just a personal tragedy, but as a spiritual transgression. Given the church's historical influence over laws, this theological judgment filtered into law and culture, where those who ended their lives were posthumously shamed. Why? The act was stripped of its context and meaning, flattened into a symbol of weakness or wrongdoing. This significant—and arguably regressive—shift likely emerged through a semantic narrowing, where a once-complex (and accepted) act became reduced to a singular, negative interpretation.
I suppose it was also significantly influenced by the advent of modern psychiatry. By framing the desire to end one's life as a symptom of mental illness, specifically depression, the focus inevitably shifted from morality to pathology. So, where the advent of religion produced semantic narrowing, the emergence of modern psychiatry likely caused a cognitive narrowing which reduced complex social, existential, and philosophical factors to diagnoses. The person became a patient, and their decision—a malfunction.
It's ultimately worth remembering that ending one's life was illegal in the UK until the late 20th century.
These days, there is little space left for conversations about autonomy, dignity, or moral reasoning in the decision. Instead, dominant narratives insist on prevention at all costs, reinforcing the binary that to want to die is either irrational or sick. Although this framework may save lives, it can also silence those for whom the struggle is not illness but meaning.
I suppose if we must begin with language to achieve the aim of changing the narrative—and ideally for good. I suppose future prevention means replacing the outdated term; perhaps this may eradicate its stigma once and for all.