When Emily Litman was in middle school, kids whose parents grounded them would blithely lament: “I just want to die." “Unalive” refers to death by suicide or homicide. It could be helpful, she says, to reserve words like “unalive” for such flippant references. Litman has mixed feelings about whether referring to suicide with “unalive” might help or hurt, but she's encouraged that kids are at least talking about it. Particularly, she says, if perceiving suicide as “unaliving” might make a struggling youth more likely to ask for help.

Source: The Nation July 14, 2023 05:44 UTC