When it comes to depression and suicide, talk isn’t cheap

For Anna Mehler Paperny, author of Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person, dialogue is essential in moving the needle on how we see and treat depression. Presented by the University of Calgary’s Community Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy (CMHWS), the award-winning reporter joins us on campus on January 23, along with members of our campus community, for an open, hopeful conversation about depression and suicide. In advance of the event, Mehler Paperny discusses recognizing early warning signs, navigating difficult conversations and the future of mental health care.  

Paying attention to warning signs

For the most part, Mehler Paperny reports a positive undergraduate experience, keeping busy and connected with a study abroad program and contributing to her school newspaper. However, as she recounts her degree, she recognizes there were signs that signalled a change in her mental health. 

“In hindsight I was probably getting depressed near the end of my degree at the time but didn’t know it. This feeling of perpetual failure really should have clued me in, that should have given me a warning that I was in the midst of this unhealthy obsession — an inability to overcome this sense that nothing I was doing was good enough.”

For those working and studying on an academic campus, fear of failure can hit pretty close to home. So how can we open up and talk about our worries and concerns, and support those who are suffering the most?

Keeping the conversation going can be a lifeline 

Mehler Paperny advocates for openness and understanding when navigating conversations around depression, and more specifically suicidal ideation. 

“It’s a scary thing to talk about, just the thought that you’d be better off dead. But I think we need to discuss it and confront it really openly if we’re going to tackle it at all,” she says. “It’s more effective, in terms of prevention, to talk about it directly—to say ‘this is where I was, this is what was going through my mind, it didn’t work, let’s hope it doesn’t work for you too.’”

For those apprehensive about starting up a conversation, Mehler Paperny offers first-hand advice. 

“I’ve had good discussions because the people I was talking to really consciously wanted me to feel accepted and understood and that made a really huge difference because that let me talk about myself in a way that I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable otherwise.” 

“Letting people set their own boundaries is important. It’s important to be open and understanding when approaching a conversation as a listener. Identify with what they’re saying without putting words in their mouth or asserting that you know what they’re saying, that can be really helpful.” 

The future of mental health care

Mehler Paperny’s book has received numerous accolades, and for good reason. In addition to her ability to talk frankly about her own first hand account of suicide and depression, she provides a thoroughly researched and comprehensive history and current state of the mental health care system in Canada.

“I want to say I’m optimistic, but there’s such a huge caveat there, because if we tackled depression the way we did other chronic medical conditions, I think we would have found something a long time ago. There’s still work being done to find new treatments…but society has become accustomed to ignoring people with mental illnesses, and treatments can reflect that. We need change if we want to transition more people to the land of the healthy.”

For Andrew Szeto, director of the CMHWS, psychology professor and a mental illness stigma researcher, there are many opportunities for research universities like UCalgary. “We have a commitment to our community to create safe, supportive environments where everyone feels they belong and can thrive,” he says, “as a large research-intensive university, we also have tremendous opportunity to advance initiatives to support the mental health and well-being of our campus community through research.”

The CMHWS works with collaborators across the university and into the community through the implementation of the Suicide Awareness and Prevention Framework and the recently established Research and Knowledge Hub, but there’s an important place for everyone to help create a supportive campus community.

“There are opportunities for everyone at all levels of the institution to play a role in creating supportive environments,” says Szeto. “Professional care, policy work, and health promotion are all important institutional pieces, but we never want to underestimate the power empathetic concern, active listening and intentional check-ins have in supporting our peers and colleagues.” 

Join us for Living with Suicide: A Community Dialogue, on Thursday, March 23, and hear Mehler Paperny alongside other members of our UCalgary community. RSVP to attend the free on-campus event here.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or behaviours or a mental health crisis, know that you are not alone and there are many supports and caring individuals available to assist you. If your safety or someone else’s is at risk, call 911 for emergency services. If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide, call or text 9-8-8. Find more supports for your mental health and well-being here. 

This event was originally scheduled for March 2020, but was cancelled due to the onset of the pandemic. The interview with Mehler Paperny was also originally conducted in early 2020.