"Moving America's Soul on Suicide"
I'm a suicide survivor who attended the documentary premiere of "Moving America's Soul on Suicide," and here is what I thought.
“If you focus too much on the darkness and pain, it’s triggering. If you overhype the hope, it’s propaganda.” - David Covington
“The dress code said casual,” I whispered to my uncle from behind my white pleather coat and waffle-knit tank that read, “Mental Health is Cool” in bold yellow lettering.
Light poured into the living room space of the Huntsman home from two-story windows. A fireplace warmed the space where an hour later I would speak about my experience with suicide in front of the dozens of humans already mingling and shaking hands in crisp business suits and corseted dresses.
What am I doing here?
For the first hour of the morning I stood in the corner of the room avoiding human contact.
I was clearly in a room full of important people with a lot of influence, and I wondered why someone like me—someone who was not making policy change or filming documentaries or doing doctor-y things and researching suicide—was present at this film premiere.
I reminded myself that we even though we have a long way to go, here were all these people gathered with the same goal in mind. That the work of preventing suicide includes destigmatizing the experience and adding humanity to an often de-humanized concept; one I used to think nobody believed in or understood.
“Rachel, where are you? Come on up!”
David Covington, one of the producers on the film and the CEO of RI International and founder of Crisis Now Academy invited me to the carpeted area designated for the morning speakers.
Prior to the screening, myself and several others were to speak at brunch in order to create context, community, and conversation. A concept I had once dreamed of coming to fruition, and now one I was bewildered and terrified to participate in.
Before sharing my story, I looked to my left and saw Christena Huntsman, whose home we were filling with stories and chatter for the entire morning. I was quickly distracted by something at her feet. When I looked down, I saw she was wearing neon pink fuzzy platform slippers.
I smiled, and looked back out at the room of humans. People are people. I am not out of place. That is an old story. People are people, and everyone in this room wants the same thing.
People are people, and I belong.
Later that afternoon, we gathered at the Huntsman Cancer Institute to watch the documentary together for the first time.
My aunt and I settled into our seats, our fingers already sticky from sour candy and gooey cookies.
Thank god there are snacks, I thought. Immediately I composed a furrowed frown—this is not a time to feel good.
I looked around to check the mood of the room. I saw people smiling and laughing. Hugging and wrapping their arms around eachother. Eating their bonbons, wiping their eyes, and honoring the spectrum of what this film represents.
I reminded myself, again, that the people here were not only honoring lives lost and sitting in the grief of what it means to know suicide’s grip—they were also celebrating life and what happens when we choose to stay.
Enjoy the snacks, Rach. You’re still alive, and this is one of the tiny delights you get to bask in because of it.
“Before the film begins I have to tell you a story.”
David stood in front of the screen, beaming with same joy for life I had finally allowed myself to feel.
“In 2013, I attended a suicide conference. I looked around me and thought, why are there no suicide survivors present at this conference?”
Medical conferences he’d previously attended included a “lived experience division:” researchers, experts in the field, and people with lived experience.
At the suicidology conference, there was no such division, nor survivors present to share their lived experience.
“I said to my colleague, ‘at cancer conferences there are doctors, scientists, and cancer survivors who share their stories so we can learn from every angle of the experience. Why on earth are there no suicide survivors at this conference to do the same?’”
To which his colleague replied,
“Well no one chooses to have cancer.”
No one chooses to be suicidal.
The first time I was suicidal I was 13, and I can promise you I didn’t wake up one morning as a young teenager and think, today, I’d like to be suicidal. Today, I’d like to long to die more than I long to live. For two decades after, I struggled with suicidality and almost lost my fight with depression three times.
So when David asked me to speak at the premiere of his documentary, “Moving America’s Soul on Suicide,” he didn’t have to give me any other reason beyond “we want to change the way people think and talk about suicide.”
Suicide has been (along with my eating disorder) one of the most difficult topics to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it.
While there are many myths about suicide (read Thomas Joiner’s Myths About Suicide), a common one is that it’s a choice.
Suicide is not a choice. It’s absence of all resources to hold onto living. It’s running out of time to make it to the surface from the bottom of the sea. It’s holding a weight overhead with no rest or relief until the body gives out.
“Falling is not a choice, and pain is not a choice” (Covington, 2016).
No matter how desperately we want to hold on to life, if the fatigue, pain, and weight of holding on lasts too long, no amount of wanting to hold on can stop gravity.
No one chooses to be suicidal. No one chooses to experience trauma or grief or oppression or to exist in a society that pushes us beyond our capacity to cope with living. No one chooses to be in so much mental anguish that there feels like no hope, no relief, and no light at the end of the tunnel.
No one chooses to be suicidal.
“When they say the light at the end of the tunnel—it’s not the light that’s the illusion. The tunnel is.”
For the next hour and forty five minutes, stories revived me.
Kevin, one of the six storytellers in the film, almost died by suicide on the golden gate bridge. But his story isn’t about the almost. It’s not about the moments before or the what if he had—it’s about the hand that held his for hours until he didn’t.
It’s about the tether between him and the person on the other side of the railing who said “I’m here, don’t let go,” and the grip that kept them talking long enough until Kevin found his belief in another tomorrow.
“Anyone who has survived suicide are explorers of the human experience.”
Craig Miller, a writer, musician, and one of the six storytellers in Moving America’s Soul on Suicide uses his survival of a suicide attempt to help others who are struggling with suicidal thoughts or depression.
He has given many talks on his perspectives of the human experience and written a book about his experiences with suicide, This is How it Feels in hopes of helping others know that no matter how hard it gets, life is in fact worth living.
In the documentary, Craig describes survivors as explorers: that anyone who has been to the darkest depths of their own mind and come out the other side has traversed the entire human experience. That is not weak. That is strong as hell.
After the documentary screening I found Craig immediately.
“What you said about being an explorer, I felt that to my core. As if the only way to make sense of coming out of a place so dark, so low, so far from any kind of light is to know that it’s so I can really appreciate what’s above ground.”
“Yes,” he said, holding back tears, “and even if it doesn’t make any sense, I have to believe I was meant to go down there. It’s as if we came back to the surface for the sole purpose of being a hand to reach into the abyss and help those still down there.”
“Moving America’s Soul on Suicide” (MASOS) is free to watch on YouTube, and as a survivor, I encourage you to watch and share with your communities.
The stories from these six humans who have explored the depth of the human experience, Silouan, Tonja, Kevin, Misha, Craig, and Ally, shifted me from my complacency in my own recovery into a new space of advocacy. They reminded me that coming out on the other side is not just about honoring where we’ve been, but admiring and delighting in where we are: Life.
MASOS is hard to watch—not for its devastating stories or heartbreak, but for its resilient nature, the kindness of strangers, and the power of vulnerability. Make sure you have snacks, an open heart, and someone to hug.
This process of destigmatizing happens together, and I believe now it’s less about reducing stigma and more about increasing our understanding of the human experience.
And in doing so, we start to understand that pain and wounds do not make us who we are, they are obstacles we overcome and then live to tell the story of.
For the first time in a long time, I feel hope about the trajectory of suicide prevention.
And not in a way that was riddled with rainbows and false promises of a life fully eupohoric—but in the ways I’ve communicated with you here in The Messy Middle: Hope, that we are starting to understand that the goal of wellness is not about stopping pain or sorrow, but about learning to seek support and lean on eachother when it comes.
If you don’t have hope right now, look for possibility.
Hope is tethered to something grand, something magical, something so beyond what we can imagine from the darkness.
So instead focus on possibility. That there is a possibility you’ll find something joyful someday. The possibility that one day you’ll forget the last time you were sad. The possibility that life might change in ways you can’t know now, but that it is, in fact, possible.
If you decide to leave, nothing is possible. If you decide to stay, anything is possible.
All my messy love,
Rachel
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the 988 crisis line 24/7. Learn more about 988 here.
To learn more about the documentary and its sponsors, head to MASOSFILM.com
Read my full story in my memoir, Where the River Flows
Speaking Events, Trips, and In-Person Experiences With Rachel in 2024:
“Recalibrate 2024” Rachel will be a keynote speaker at this wellness event.
March 8th-9th
Charlotte, NC
A full-day experience designed to enlighten your perspective, transform your mindset, and invite you to tune in and take action.
“Bali Bound, BB” group trip to Bali hosted by rachel.havekost@gmail.com
August 23-29th, 2024
Bali, Indonesia
7 day group trip of exploration, culture, core memories, and cultivating connections abroad.
Beautiful, moving read
Thank you for this. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts since I was 7yrs old my first attempt was 9yrs old and your right no one chooses to be suicidal. Here I am 49 yrs old and still struggle with suicidal ideations and too many suicide attempts too count. Maybe if talking about suicide wasn't such a taboo or scary thing or seen as a bad thing maybe more lives would be saved. Suicide is not bad or all those things that people say it is it is so misunderstood because people do not take the time to listen to the person who is going through those thoughts or feelings they make it about themselves and not about the person who is suicidal. I can't tell you how many times I have heard think about your kids or think about your family guess what I have really hard and that's not something I wanna hear. Or I hear how would it make me feel if you left stop making it about you because it's not about you it's about the person who is feeling suicidal they have thought about everyone and 9 times out of 10 they feel there suffering is not fair to you. And I have felt that way many times myself. Maybe if people would just listen instead of trying fix. We are not a project that needs fixing.