It's World Suicide Prevention Month and this year's theme is "changing the narrative on suicide". I found this problematic, not because there isn't a dire need, but because I believe the term itself enables and reinforces the stigma it aims to eradicate. The word 'suicide' stems from the Latin suicidium (sui - "of oneself" and caedere - "to kill") and replaced the far more accusatory 'self-murder.' The stigma is unsurprising considering how the '-cide' suffix in suicide ostensibly aligns with words like homicide, infanticide, and genocide, which all denote murder rather than mere death.
Yet, historical literature has depicted self-inflicted deaths without stigma, and in some instances, as acts of heroism: from biblical Saul to Shakespeare's Ophelia, and even Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. It's worth asking what has since changed and why. I believe it's for two reasons.
Perhaps the moral condemnation of self-inflicted deaths intensified with the rise of Christianity and the church's historical influence over laws. By framing life as sacred and suffering as redemptive, it's possible taking one's own life became (viewed) not just a personal tragedy, but as a spiritual transgression. This significant—and arguably regressive—shift likely emerged through a semantic narrowing, where a once-complex (and accepted) act became reduced to a singular, negative interpretation.
Potentially due to how suicide has been framed within modern psychiatry. By framing the desire to end one's life as symptomatic of mental illness, the focus inevitably shifted from morality to pathology. So, where the advent of religion produced semantic narrowing, the emergence of modern psychiatry likely caused a cognitive narrowing which reduced complex social, existential, and philosophical factors to diagnoses.
These days, there is little space left for conversations about autonomy, dignity, or moral reasoning in the decision. Instead, dominant narratives insist on prevention at all costs, reinforcing the binary that the desire to die reflects illogicality or illness. I suppose future prevention means replacing the outdated term; perhaps this may eradicate its stigma once and for all.