What I Learned About Suicide Prevention and Loss Support at Seventeen

I didn’t set out to become a grief professional.

I was just a teenager who had lost too many people.

By my senior year of high school (2001-2002 era), suicide had already touched my life again and again. Friends. Classmates. People I’d sat next to in class the week before. After a while, the question that haunted me wasn’t why did this happen? but why aren’t we talking about this?

So we started talking.

With the help of a faculty advisor, I co-founded a Survivors of Suicide support group in my community and hometown of Los Alamos, New Mexico. It was also affiliated with a Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention and Awareness Club that I helped create at my high school. I still have the old meeting notes—typed agendas and scribbles in the margins—reminders of how earnest and determined we were. I even found the original flyer for the group (early 2000s computer graphics and all ;) ):

We passed out introduction packets. Shared resource lists. Yellow ribbon cards. We’d written “I’m a survivor” at the top of the sign-in sheet like it was both a label and a lifeline. We planned simple structures: check-ins, handouts on emotions, time for free sharing. We even made notes like “bring toilet paper—people cry,” which feels both heartbreaking and very seventeen.

Mostly, we just made space.

In those early meetings, we talked about things adults often avoided. It felt enlightening and profound to speak with adults on this level. Anger at the person who died. The hollow feeling of hearing from others that they are in a “better place now.” The way guilt creeps in afterward—what if I’d noticed, what if I’d said something different. One parent described suicidal thoughts like a crumbling pyramid. Another talked about shame. Someone admitted they didn’t feel comforted by platitudes. Once the first person spoke honestly, everyone else followed.

That was my first lesson in prevention: silence is heavier than truth.

We experimented with prompts—quotes, writing exercises, memory activities. One night we watched a “Memories of Owen” video (a local teen and friend of mine who had died and one of the people I do this work in memory of) and talked about how remembering joy could soften grief. I wrote in my notes that it helped me feel connected and that the quiet after sharing felt “necessary." Even then, I was noticing that grief needed both words and pauses...and how nuanced that can be.

I also learned how hard prevention really is. We talked about how difficult it is to detect warning signs, how someone can hide their sadness until the very end. That reality didn’t make me feel helpless—it made me more committed to building connection. If we couldn’t predict everything, maybe we could create places where people didn’t have to carry pain alone.

Looking back, that little high-school group was messy and imperfect. We didn’t have clinical training. We had photocopies, clipart, folding chairs and a lot of heart.

But it worked.

We had listening ears and open hearts. People came back. They shared. They cried. They remembered their loved ones as people, not just “victims.” And slowly, the room felt less lonely.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of everything I do now.

Suicide prevention doesn’t always start with big campaigns or hotlines.

Sometimes it starts with a circle of chairs, a sign-in sheet, and someone brave enough to say, “Me too. I’m glad you’re here.”

I learned that saying "the right thing" matters much less than just actively listening. I learned I could listen and hear - really hear - other people at 17 years old. And that is powerful.

A Powerful Resource That Helped My Understanding During My Teen Years:

"How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me" by Susan Rose Blauner, MSW, LCSW. It was one of my lifelines as I tried to make sense of an intense world.