The Suicide Epidemic
Framing The Problem And Some Solutions
Before we talk about what can be done, we need to define what this phenomenon actually is.
Suicide is often described as an intensely individual act — a private collapse, a personal tragedy.
But it is also a collective failure:
A failure at the societal level.
A failure at the community level.
A failure at the national level.
And in a culture that celebrates individualism — the “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps” ethos — it becomes hard to even speak of suicide as shared sorrow, much less shared responsibility.
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The Myth of the Rugged Individual
We are told to go it alone.
We are fed the story of the tough settlers, making their way West against all odds and building their lives from nothing.
We are told to ‘man up’ and chase the prize.
To strive. To grind. To optimize.
To package ourselves into productivity machines.
But what happens when that machine breaks down?
We don’t have an answer.
We blame the individual.
We call it weakness.
And we move on.
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The Speed of Collapse
Over the last 150 years, technology has advanced faster than human beings could adapt.
We went from horses to landing on the moon in less than a century.
Our ancestors lived in villages for millennia. We had cultures that were inclusive and where everyone felt heard and connected.
Now we live in digital echo chambers, dislocated from place, tradition, and time.
And with AI accelerating every aspect of life, today’s knowledge becomes obsolete within months.
There has been no time to grieve, to reflect, to adjust.
Only the constant demand to “keep up.”
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A Society of Disintegration
We’ve lived through two world wars, countless ‘interventions’, mass displacements, political upheaval, pandemics, and economic cycles that uplift the few and exhaust the many.
• Families have fractured.
• Communities have hollowed out.
• Religious institutions have lost relevance.
• And in many places, atheism has become its own dogma — self-righteous, absolute, and with its own high priests.
In the vacuum that remains, meaning vanishes.
And what fills that vacuum is not connection — but consumption.
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We didn’t start the fire….
I talk to teenagers every day. They are terrified and disgusted.
They see the climate disaster.
They see rising costs, political rage, broken healthcare, an impossible job market, and the astronomical educational costs and think, what’s the point?
Now, with talk of a third world war, their dread feels nearly apocalyptic.
How do you ask a young person to build a life in a world they believe is already ending?
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Slaves to Time, Addicted to Output
We have become slaves to time.
Everywhere you look, someone is selling you a hack, a habit, a program to squeeze one more task out of your last waking minute.
Productivity is the new piety.
People who can’t hold their own lives together are marketing themselves as life coaches.
Retreats are commodified.
Courses promise transformation for $9.99/month.
And all of this is supposed to soothe us?
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The Not So Super Markets
Step into a supermarket.
Look around.
You’ll find food-like products so processed they could kill plants.
You’ll find entire aisles dedicated to distraction.
And somehow, still, we leave feeling hungry.
What we call “choice” feels like confusion.
What we call “freedom” feels like fatigue.
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Designed for Isolation
Our cities and suburbs are built not to connect us, but to divide us.
We sit in cars. We live in boxes. We work in silos.
Loneliness is not just a side effect of modern life — it is its design flaw.
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This is what we are up against.
A culture that teaches us to suppress emotion, deny vulnerability, and call disconnection a badge of honor.
If we are going to address the suicide epidemic — if we are going to offer real solutions — we must begin by naming the system itself:
A world that moves fast, feels shallow, and makes little space for what makes life worth living.
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Strengthening the Social Fabric
Ground Zero for Real Change
If we’re serious about healing ourselves, this is where we must begin.
We cannot solve a collective crisis by only treating individuals.
We cannot medicate our way out of loneliness.
We cannot therapy our way through a culture of fracture.
Strengthening the social fabric must be ground zero.
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A New Social Contract
Some believe the government should stay out of everything — that it only makes things worse.
But the truth is: this crisis is too big for any one individual, nonprofit, or practice to fix.
We need scale, and that means we need coordinated government involvement — federal, state, and local — with real accountability and funding.
This isn’t a partisan issue.
This is an existential one.
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Public Investment in Mental Health Infrastructure
We need national campaigns that:
• Educate the public on mental health in easy to understand language
• Expand access to care: medication management, psychotherapy, outpatient rehab, and job retraining
• Introduce advanced therapies like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through properly trained providers
• Normalize the spiritual dimension of healing
We don’t need more bureaucracy.
We need real clinics. Real therapists. Real pathways to healing.
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Psychiatric Crisis Centers — Not Just Inpatient Wards
We throw too many people into inpatient units when what they really need is stabilization, safety, and support in an outpatient setting.
We need to fund and expand psychiatric crisis centers — short-stay programs where people can rest, receive targeted treatment, and avoid the revolving door of ERs and hospitals.
These centers cost less and do more good.
Keep inpatient beds for the floridly psychotic, manic, or those recovering from serious suicide attempts. The community based spaces could also function as step down units where the ones discharged from the hospital could be integrated.
Let the rest heal in structured, community-based spaces that treat them as humans — not insurance codes.
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Build (or Reclaim) Third Spaces
We must invest in community centers, libraries, mosques, churches, synagogues, temples, and neutral civic spaces.
We already have the buildings.
We need to reimagine their use:
• Make them places of connection, not monuments.
• Host support groups, shared meals, storytelling nights.
• Offer transportation so people can actually attend.
Connection is preventive care.
Belonging is medicine.
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Revitalize Mentorship and Companionship
Create intergenerational mentorship programs that pair young adults with elders.
These connections foster dignity, accountability, and wisdom transmission — all while reducing isolation.
Recruit and train volunteer companions who regularly check in on people who live alone.
Sometimes what someone needs most is to know that people care. That they are not alone.
And we must listen to the First Nations elders — stewards of the land and traditions that have long honored community, respect for the environment, and spiritual restoration.
They’ve suffered from our neglect.
It’s time we invited them to guide us as they have a connection to the land which runs deep going back millenia.
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Real Collaborative Care (Not Just a Buzzword)
We love to say “collaborative care” — but rarely practice or fund it.
If we’re serious, we must:
• Expand telehealth with reimbursement parity
• Normalize emerging modalities: psychedelic therapy, VR treatment, TMS
• Provide Medicare and Medicaid support that allows for real continuity of care
Right now, as suicides climb to record levels, we’re cutting public mental health services and access to care. In one of the county where I practice, the local bus service which would transport patients to and from the clinics have started asking the patients for money. These are the most vulnerable patients who have a hard time paying their rent, bills and food bill.
If that’s not moral failure, what is?
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Leadership. Now.
Most people in the field have never even heard of the “National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.”
I’ve been a community-based psychiatrist for 17 years — and I hadn’t.
These initiatives often die quiet bureaucratic deaths.
Task forces meet once or twice. Then fade.
We don’t need more documents.
We need doers.
‘A little less conversation a little more action’ Elvis sang.
We need:
• Physicians. Nurses. Therapists. Social workers, NP’s, PA’s
• Veterans. Patients. Pastors. Poets. Artists.
• Democrats and Republicans.
• People of faith or no faith.
• People who care enough to speak out together.
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Depression is an equal-opportunity destroyer.
It doesn’t care about your politics.
Or your ideology.
Your zip code.
If we don’t come together — across our silos and screens — we will keep losing people. Quietly. 6 human beings an hour. 137 a day. Over 50K a year.
Every suicide sends a ripple out through space and time. Every soul is sacred. The Quran says, “If you have saved the life of one person, it is as if you have saved the life of whole of humanity, and if you have taken a life, it is as if you have taken the life of whole of humanity.”
Bringing Back the Sacred
As we embark on the long work of healing this land and its people, one of the foundational acts must be this:
We must reintegrate spirituality into the conversation.
Not the watered-down, commodified “wellness spirituality” marketed today.
Not the $9.99/month subscription to self-affirmations.
But the real thing.
The deep spiritual traditions — rooted in thousands of years of contemplation, care, and connection — that have always guided human beings through despair, transformation, and return.
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Everything Is Connected
We cannot heal the human spirit while destroying the land beneath our feet.
How we treat the earth, the animals, the water, the insects —
Is inseparable from how we treat one another.
The environmental, emotional, and spiritual crises we face are symptoms of the same severance.
It’s time to remember what the elders have always known:
We belong to the land. And to each other.
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The Old Traditions Still Hold Water
I have traveled far and wide.
I have sat at the feet of spiritual masters who have spent lifetimes in contemplation — and in service.
These teachers don’t talk about transcendence as escape.
They bring the sacred into the everyday.
In the Islamic tradition, for example, there is no separation between the spiritual and the mundane.
Intention is everything.There is sacredness in washing hands, in eating with others, in caring for neighbors.
Science, too, is seen as a divine trust — a tool to serve humanity, not harm it.
To uplift creation, not destroy it.
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Teaching Young People to Love the World Again
Today’s youth are filled with questions — about meaning, purpose, existence.
They are not interested in dogma.
But they are hungry for wisdom.
We must offer them:
• Language that speaks to the heart
• Stories and practices that awaken wonder
• Spiritual frameworks that make suffering bearable, and life meaningful
We must reintroduce:
• Prayer (as grounding)
• Meditation (as presence)
• Dhikr — the remembrance of God (as alignment)
These are not luxuries.
They are lifelines.
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The Sacred is Social, Too
Imams, Chaplains, pastors, rabbis, monks, elders — they are not peripheral to this work.
They are essential.
They walk with the grieving.
They hold what medicine cannot.
They remember what the rest of us forget.
We must make them our partners — in clinics, in classrooms, in circles of care.
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Love Must Lead
At the center of all this — must be love.
Not sentimentality. But actionable, generative, disruptive love.
Love for the earth.
Love for our elders.
Love for those on the margins.
Love for the next generation, who are quietly wondering if we’ve given up.
We must show them we haven’t.
And we do that by remembering the sacred — and returning to it, together.
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Reclaiming Medicine as a Moral Act
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
It’s time for physicians to wake up. And speak up.
This suicide epidemic affects all of us. It does not care about specialty, income, politics, or prestige.
No one is immune. No one is exempt.
And we — the physicians — must lead.
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Why Should We Need to Qualify “Humane”?
It’s absurd that I even have to say this, but here we are:
The practice of medicine must be humane.
It is meant to be a service to humanity, not an industry of billing codes and burnout.
We are supposed to treat every human being with care — regardless of race, religion, political affiliation, or background.
But the system has made that nearly impossible.
We are judged by our productivity, not our presence.
By volume, not value.
By metrics, not meaning.
This has to change.
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Time, Trust, and Dignity
We need to provide adequate time for providers to be with their patients.
Real conversations. Real assessments. Real connection.
Compensation must be realigned to reflect the value of trust.
Every provider should be equipped and given the time to screen for depression, suicidality, trauma, and disconnection — and then immediately refer patients to the care they need.
Resources must be built into the infrastructure, not bolted on as afterthoughts.
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It Starts with Education
We should not wait until medical school to teach mental health.
Pre-med and medical students must be trained to:
• Recognize signs of depression and suicidality
• Understand trauma and family systems
• Engage in honest, soul-aware care from day one
We need a new generation of healers who know how to see pain — not just pathologize it.
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Reinforce the Family and Community
Depression is a family illness.
It affects everyone.
So any treatment plan that excludes family and community is incomplete — if not ineffective.
Parents need better tools.
Pediatric visits should include mental health screening as standard care.
Teachers, coaches, and faith leaders should be trained to identify at-risk youth.
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Protecting Our Youth From the Algorithm
Social media has had a devastating impact on the mental health of young people — particularly girls — since 2011.
Many countries in Europe have restricted access to social media for those under 15 or 16.
The U.S. must follow suit.
We need:
• Legislative action that protects children online
• Meaningful enforcement of content ratings
• Severe penalties for platforms that promote or allow violent, harmful, or pornographic content to minors
And yes — child pornography must be punished with the utmost severity.
There can be no compromise on this.
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It takes a village to raise a child
Children who have been sexually, emotionally, or physically abused need safe, loving environments to heal.
They need to know that the people who harmed them have been held accountable.
They also need something more:
• Mentorship
• Literacy
• Craftsmanship
• Movement
• Spiritual grounding
We must bring reading, nature, art, and soulful practices back into school life.
These aren’t luxuries. They are lifelines.
We need every child in this country to feel loved by the community — not just tolerated by a system.
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We Must Regulate Technology Before It Regulates Us
AI is evolving faster than our ethical frameworks.
We must establish:
• Legal guardrails around its use
• Bans on use in manipulative, addictive, or exploitative ways
• Strict boundaries around child safety in all digital environments
Let’s not repeat the mistakes we made with social media.
Let’s build with caution, reverence, and accountability.
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Every physician, every therapist, every nurse, every human being who works in the healing professions needs to say:
“Not on my watch.”
We cannot claim neutrality in the face of this crisis.
We must reclaim medicine not just as a job — but as a moral act.
The Quiet Lives of Desperation
The Healers Are Hurting Too
We lose a doctor a day to suicide in this country.
Let that sink in.
Every day, someone who has spent over a decade acquiring the knowledge and skills to save lives decides to end their own.
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Why?
What could drive a physician — someone with access, education, and purpose — to such despair?
They are not exempt from the world’s pain.
They breathe the same air.
They eat the same food.
Their children face the same fears.
They too live in the same spiritual desert we’re all wandering through.
But unlike most, they carry the burden not just of their own suffering — but of everyone else’s too.
Doctors. Nurses. NPs. PAs. Psychologists. Therapists. Social workers. Chaplains.
Many are living quiet lives of desperation.
And when they do cry out, the system too often answers with shame.
We tell them:
• Be strong
• Don’t say too much
• If they find out, you might lose your license
• Your patients will doubt you
• You’re the healer. You can’t be the one hurting.
So they stay silent.
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I Almost Burned Out Too
Ten years ago, I was almost there.
I had absorbed too much pain, held too many sorrows, sat too long without grounding.
And then — my spiritual teachers stepped in.
They saved my life.
With presence.
With empathy.
With compassion and care.
They didn’t “fix” me.
They walked with me.
They reminded me I wasn’t alone.
And that was enough to help me begin again.
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Check On Your Colleagues
Sometimes what saves a life isn’t an intervention.
It’s a gesture:
• A text message
• A voice note
• A quick phone call
• A warm email
• A coffee, shared without agenda
These things may seem small.
But I promise you: they are not.
In this line of work, a single moment of kindness can be the difference between despair and survival.
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Let Us Be Each Other’s Medicine
If we want to stop the suicide epidemic, we must start with those who carry the pain of others every day.
We must build systems that allow clinicians to:
• Ask for help without fear
• Rest without guilt
• Heal without judgment
• Be seen as fully human
Because until we protect our healers, we cannot hope to protect the healing.
Educating the Public, Empowering the People
Beginning the Work Together
If we want to shift the tide of this crisis, we must turn toward education that leads to empowerment.
We must use the very tools that have isolated us — social media, AI, technology — to reconnect us.
Let’s harness these platforms not for distraction, but for healing.
Let’s reach across this beautiful land and remind people that they are not alone.
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We Must Rebuild Community from the Ground Up
We need a radical reorientation.
Not more token walks.
Not one-time awareness seminars.
Not corporate campaigns with nice slogans.
We need:
• Real conversations
• Real investment
• Real human connection
We need to rebuild our neighborhoods, our friendships, our circles of care.
We need to put value back into the things that actually matter.
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A Spiritual Awakening, Not Just a Social Campaign
What we need isn’t just societal.
We need a spiritual awakening.
We need to reconnect our souls to ourselves — and to every soul around us.
We need to remember, as Rumi and Al-Ghazali taught, that the heart is a mirror — one that must be polished.
Only then can it reflect the Divine light that lives within us all — the light of:
• Love
• Empathy
• Kindness
• Compassion
• Presence
For ourselves.
For each other.
For every living thing on this planet.
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Let Us Begin the Work
We’ve named the crisis.
We’ve honored the suffering.
We’ve outlined the path forward.
Now, we walk.
Let’s begin the work.
Bismillah.