When Kurt Cobain pulled the trigger in April 1994, it was a shot heard around the world. Newspapers, magazines, television, the Internet flashed the news of the rock star's suicide into every home. But that's rarely how America handles its suicides. More often, society places a silencer on the barrel muffling the truth, quieting the questions.
Whispers surround suicide because of powerful social taboos.
Like the biblical plagues, fear, shame and guilt descend on the homes of suicides, ravaging emotions behind walls of silence and confusion. It's a terrible taboo in our culture, to kill yourself. Suicide has been a part of the human condition since the earliest times. Always, some stigma has surrounded it. Parents may feel it reflects poorly on them if a child commits suicide.