There’s a book I turn to every now and then to remind myself not to surrender to despair. It’s called “Abandoned Topeka: Psychiatric Capital of the World” and it’s a photo album about the forgotten and mostly hidden places around town.

The author is Emily Cowan, and she’s just the kind of urban explorer we need to remind us of where we’ve been.

Her book certainly did that for me.

My chief interest is the documentary photos of the Menninger campus in the two decades after the world-famous psychiatric facility closed its doors in 2003 and moved to Houston. The distinctive clock tower and main building was a familiar landmark in Topeka for decades and has been saved recently from demolition by a state grant.

You see, when I was a graduate student about three decades ago, I was a resident at Menninger’s.

I’m not going to share the details of what led me there, or the intended method other than to say it involved a firearm, but I will say I was suicidal because of personal problems that seemed insurmountable. My lowest of lows came one night when I watched a storm over the Kaw from my hospital room and listened to the rain against the window pane. To this day, I can’t see rain against a window without feeling a pang of sadness.

This isn’t easy for me to relate because there is a societal stigma attached to suicide and those who contemplate it. For a long time, I was ashamed to tell this story. But looking back on that hard time so long ago, I understand now that my condition wasn’t weakness but a combination of a lot of bad luck, some bad personal choices and a predisposition to depression baked into my genes. Although I would have done some things differently, I was lucky enough to survive and put my life back together.

I’m telling you this story because Sept. 10 kicks off National Suicide Prevention Week. It’s important, I think, to share our stories of pain and sometimes loss to help others, because when you’re in the belly of the beast, you feel alone. If you are suffering in this way, I want you to stop right now and dial 988 for help.

Our culture has also complicated the issue, at once presenting suicide as a romantic alternative to emotional pain and as an escape for the weak, worthy of criminal punishment.

Consider “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” or “Chatterton,” the story of Judas in the New Testament, “Veronika Decides to Die.” Ernest Hemingway, Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain. Historically, suicide has been regarded as a sin, with victims denied burial in consecrated ground.

Legally, it’s still considered a crime in at least 20 countries.

But there is nothing romantic, heretical or inherently criminal about suicide. It is a public health crisis that deserves to be dealt with in the same manner as other crises, and that begins with frank and informed talk. As painful as my Menninger’s sojourn was, it is nothing compared to the horror and grief of survivors who have lost family members and friends to suicide. The most harrowing stories are those from the parents of children who have ended their lives.

In Kansas, the overall suicide rate increased 65 percent from 2001 to 2020. This makes us 18th in the nation, with those most at risk being older men living in the “frontier” counties of western Kansas, according to statistics from the Kansas Health Institute. Nationally, Wyoming and Montana lead the nation for the worst suicide rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control, followed by Alaska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Colorado.

About one American every 11 minutes takes their life, according to the CDC.

Among young people, suicide is the second leading cause of death, behind automobile accidents. From 2019 to 2021, child suicide attempts resulted in a 68 percent increase in emergency department visits, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. And, in the past decade, according to the KDHE, there was an overall 56 percent increase in young persons using firearms to kill themselves.

Let that last figure sink in.

I was lucky to have spent a few weeks at Menninger’s and then gotten on with life. There was more to it than that, of course, but I was fortunate to be in a place that prevented me from acting on an impulse from which there is no recovery.

But there are families in every corner of the state whose loved ones weren’t so lucky, who aren’t reminded of a troubled time by just a few raindrops but who will forever live with the tragedy of an empty seat at the dinner table.

The state should devote the resources necessary so that every Kansan, especially children, has access to appropriate resources in a mental health emergency. Lawmakers should recognize that making guns more accessible than ever in Kansas may have unintentionally contributed to a spike in suicides among young people.

The question is, what are they willing to do about it?

Waving a phone at the problem isn’t going to save a single life.

Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist.

Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate.

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