‘Tell them you love them’ — Into the Light Suicide and Mental Health Awareness Walk speak shares powerful message

SALISBURY — According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, someone in the United States takes their life every 11 minutes. With such a staggering frequency, it’s likely that most people have been impacted in some way by suicide.

Several of those people gathered before day break on Saturday at Catawba College’s Shuford Stadium for the Into the Light Suicide and Mental Health Awareness Walk. While everyone there probably has a story to tell, one individual, Katelin Rice, offered testimony about her life following her father’s suicide.

Rice, a former city of Salisbury employee and Lexington native, was 19 when she lost her dad, Johnny Rice.

“One thing I wanted to speak about today is I think I’ve gone through every stage of grief over and over and over,” Rice said. “You know, I’ll be angry, I will find peace, I’ll find acceptance, and then I’ll start right back over. And I think that’s the message that I wanted to share today, is that it’s OK to feel that way. You know, there’s no rule book on how you’re supposed to process this.”

Rice said that it helps to talk about her father and what she has gone through since his suicide, although she did not reach that level of reconciliation right away. It took some time before she was able to really talk to others about it.

“There was a long time where if somebody would ask we would just say he died because he had some health problems, and his health declined over the years,” Rice said. “So, it was easy to just say he passed away, but I don’t think that’s fair to him. I think we need to talk about mental health and substance abuse and what we can do to help the people that need it.”

So that’s what Rice is doing and Saturday provided a platform to profess what she has learned about herself and the realities associated with suicide.

“I want people to know that they don’t have to be ashamed of this and that it’s not their fault and they’re not alone,” Rice said. “You know, I think being able to come together in a group and see other faces and have conversations with people that have experienced this, whether it’s your friend or your parent or your child, we have to come together and be here for each other.”

Having those conversations can be tough, when the subject matter is wrought with so many emotions, but that makes them all the more necessary.

“Suicide is something for so long that people didn’t want to talk about,” Rice said. “They didn’t want to face it. I don’t know if it was guilt or I don’t know, but people didn’t talk about this. And I think we have to know that there are resources in our community, so you can see the signs and you can help those that need it.”

It’s not always obvious that someone is hurting. Sometimes, even with the gift of hindsight, recognizing the warning signs is not a given.

“We didn’t see the signs,” Rice said. “In the last conversation I had with my dad, I don’t remember if I said (I love you) to him, and you always have this question, well, is there something I could have done? Could I have loved them harder? Could I have supported them better? I think you have to reach a point where you forgive yourself and you know that you did the best.”

That’s part of the reason why today, Rice makes shirts with a simple message embroidered across the front: “Tell them you love them.”

A couple of notes about suicide from the CDC website.

• Suicide rates increased 37 percent between 2000-2018 and decreased 5 percent between 2018-2020. However, rates returned to their peak in 2022.
• The suicide rate among males in 2022 was approximately four times higher than the rate among females. Males make up 50 percent of the population but nearly 80 percent of suicides.
• Firearms are the most common method used in suicides. Firearms were used in more than 50 percent of suicides in 2022.

If you are thinking about suicide or know about someone who may be struggling with mental health and could pose a risk to themselves, consider contacting the suicide hotline. The number is 988.

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