Storytelling for Suicide Prevention Checklist

Decide if you are ready to speak.

Ask yourself if you are ready to speak. If you don’t want to tell your story, you don’t have to. Give yourself time to heal and gain perspective about your experiences. Reflect on the difference between healing yourself and helping others. Consider consulting a mental health professional, such as a therapist or counselor, who can help you figure out if you are ready.

Decide how to share your story.

Sharing your story does not have to take a certain form or shape. Think about your goals. What message do you want to promote or achieve by sharing your experience? What audience are you hoping to reach? Weigh the potential benefits and risks for yourself and others. Identifying your values, goals, and needs can help you determine the audiences you feel most comfortable addressing, whether that audience is a group of people in certain situations, such as others with lived experience, the general public, or somewhere in between. Consider if or where your story will be published (Eg., news article, blog, video, etc.) and determine if you are comfortable having your lived experience story be public.

Identify what you want to share. 

Decide what aspects of your story you may want to avoid or be cautious about discussing and what you feel comfortable sharing. This may be influenced by your audience. Research in the suicide prevention field recommends avoiding sharing graphic details of self-harm and suicide. The field also recommends identifying and sharing any resources, actions, and people who helped you through a crisis – whatever helped you may be a support to others too when they hear your story.

Prepare to tell your story safely and effectively. 

This could take the form of consulting available guidelines for safe messaging and suicide prevention, learning about suicide prevention resources in your area, contacting a suicide prevention organization to collaborate, or taking a suicide prevention training or mental health first aid course. When using these tools and resources, be cautious to ensure you are not sharing myths about suicide- such as suicide is inevitable. Instead, focus on the hope and healing you have been able to find through the pain you’ve experienced (or continue to experience) to help inspire others to seek help.

Introduce yourself. 

Help listeners get to know you by sharing a little bit about yourself. Be mindful about sharing identifying information if you are not comfortable doing so.

Share your experiences. 

What experiences led you to thoughts of suicide? Were there any warning signs for periods of crisis that you can see now looking back? Think about the most important thing you’d like your listener to know. There is no need to minimize what you went through, but keeping this section brief helps to keep the focus on ways to move through a crisis (see the section below for examples). Avoid sharing graphic details of self-harm or methods of suicide (for more information on why, please see the 988 Lifeline information on the Papageno and Werther Effect).

Share what helped you. 

Describe how you found help and hope or what could have helped you during a crisis. This step is important to helping others through your story, as it illustrates the value of finding coping skills that work for you, connecting to support, and providing resources or actions others can take.

Share your current experience. 

How are you different today? What has helped you make the decision to stay alive and keep working to make a life worth living for yourself? How do you cope with any ongoing struggles? Share what is going well in your life, as well as any ongoing support, personal or professional, you have in place in case you have suicidal thoughts again. Focus on sharing hope for others.

Share resources. 

Encourage people to call a local crisis hotline (such as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for those in the U.S. and its territories) or reach out to other mental health services and resources if they are in crisis, such as a mental health professional, mental health urgent care, crisis stabilization unit, mobile crisis response team, emergency room, etc. If individuals are unaware of resources in their area, encourage them to contact their local 2-1-1 center for more information. Share the #BeThe1To steps that others can take to support people in their lives who may be struggling. Provide ways that people can participate in suicide prevention, such as supporting their local crisis contact center, attending suicide prevention workshops, or spreading positive messaging regarding suicide prevention. If you are speaking to a journalist, share the Reporting on Suicide guidelines.

Be ready for others to reach out to you. 

Your story of hope and recovery has the power to affect and help people in crisis, as well as educate others about suicide prevention and mental health. People may reach out to you with questions, concerns about a loved one, or to share their own mental health stories with you. This may be difficult if you are not used to discussing your lived experience with others. Identify what you feel ready to discuss with others, what your limits are, and how you want to communicate your boundaries to others. It is okay to communicate that you are uncomfortable sharing additional information about your story or do not have the skill set to help someone in crisis personally. If an individual seems to be in crisis or having suicidal thoughts, refer to the resources section below.

Be armed with resources. 

Have a variety of resources on hand to share with people who may be experiencing a crisis, are concerned about others, or are seeking advice on a mental health matter. Remember, It is okay if you do not have the tools to support their crisis personally. Encourage them to reach out to these resources and services, such as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, The Trevor Project, the SAMHSA Resource Locator, their local 2-1-1 center, and other local supports. You might consider attending a gatekeeper training like safeTALK, ASIST, QPR, or LivingWorks START so that you are more comfortable when approached by someone who is experiencing thoughts of suicide or has a loved one who is experiencing suicidal thoughts or behavior.

Utilize your personal support system. 

After sharing your story, it may help to talk out your feelings, the stories you’ve heard from others and their impact on you, and any emotions you may have experienced with people who care about you and understand the nature and impact of your story and your work. Your support system can include a mental health professional, friends, family members, someone from your faith community, or colleagues.

Rest up. 

Take a break from talking about mental health and suicide prevention. Discussing topics like suicide can have an emotional and physical toll on someone. Schedule downtime, participate in activities you enjoy, and reflect on your Safety Plan if you have one, to help maintain balance in your life. It is okay and normal if you need support for yourself after talking about your lived experience story, even if you are in a place of healing. Reflect on your support system and reach out to 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline if needed.

Connect with other survivors. 

It may be valuable to reach out to other suicide attempt survivors for understanding. Organizations like United Survivors or Live Through This can connect you with others who have lived experience with suicide. Some communities might have a suicide attempt survivors support group.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to share your personal story, know that you are a member of a community of survivors that spans across the country and the world.

Stories like yours help give hope to others. By sharing our experiences, we all can change the conversation about suicide from one of tragedy to one of hope and healing.