Stay Awhile

About this campaign

“What will I miss out on?”
A couple of years ago I had asked the patients that I was working with that day on an inpatient mental health unit to write a six word story about their life. As we went around the room one woman shared those six words above. I asked her to elaborate on what these words meant to her. She said something along the lines of “this is the question I asked myself right before I decided not to go through with my suicide attempt.” Around 800,000 people die by suicide a year. An estimated 6-8 people are intimately affected by the loss, but if we are honest, the ripple effect is often much larger. So even if you do the math and see a big number and your brain cannot fully wrap around that reality, the actual reality is that the number your looking at is probably too small. So maybe you have a similar question that I had: what do we do with this information? There are a few things, I guess, but for whatever reason I decided to make a t-shirt ‍♀️ I hear so many people I work with, both men and women, say the same thing over and over “I don’t want to be a burden” “people would be better off without me” and that ending their life felt like “the only option.” So, the hope behind the words “stay awhile, the world is better off with you here” is to be a reminder that there are other options. An option to stay,with no pressure to be anything they aren’t or feel anything they don’t. Many times, people contemplating suicide are looking for just one reason to stay, one person who sees them. So maybe even a t-shirt can start some conversations?? Make someone feel seen?
Proceeds go to Alliance of Hope to help cover resources/support for anyone navigating the complex grief of losing a loved one to suicide.