Paige Gaines.Photo: Cat Harper Photography
“Sadness” and “anger” are two of the emotions that Paige Gaines says she felt when she woke up the morning after her firstsuicide attempt.
The night before she swallowed pills, sadly confident in her belief that it was her “time to go.” She went to bed fully expecting not to wake up. Gaines was just 12.
“The numbers have continued to rise since about 2016, 2017,” Gaines tells PEOPLE, noting studies based on recent CDC figures, which were highlighted in a 2021 study published in theJournal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. “That’s what led me to this. African American men, African American boys are more likely to attempt suicide than white men and white boys. African American females and African American young girls are attempting higher as well. So, it’s been a continuous rise in numbers.”
Paige Gaines at the age of 6. She says that she always experienced sadness, even as a child.Paige Gaines
Yet discussing suicide and therapy remains taboo within the Black community. It’s a challenge that Gaines — who works with Mental Health America of Georgia as a Certified Peer Specialist — wants to overcome.
“I want people to know that it is okay to have a conversation about mental health,” she says.
As a child Gaines was so sad that she often felt like she didn’t want to exist.
“I always thought that I would not see past 25,” she says.
On paper she had every reason to be happy.
“My mother was an attorney, and my dad was an entrepreneur,” Gaines says. “So, I grew up in an affluent family, very successful, which kind of drove me to feel as if I didn’t have the right to say, ‘Hey, I’m depressed.’ We grew up in a family where we had food in our stomach, clothes [on] our back and we had a house over our head. So, there was really no room to complain.”
Gaines was able to keep her first suicide attempt a secret. It took place during the summer when she was staying at an aunt’s house. She woke up the next morning, kept it to herself and moved on with her life.
Ten years later her family discovered her secret when she was hospitalized for a second suicide attempt at the age of 22. (Her initial experience was listed as part of her medical history.) By then a public relations major at Georgia Southern University, her life was spiraling out of control and she couldn’t understand why.
“I began experiencing symptoms of bipolar disorder,” Gaines says of the chemical imbalance also known as manic depression. “I was so sleep deprived. I wasn’t eating. I weighed about 100 lbs., maybe 105. And I was having extreme anger outbursts, a lot ofcrying spells.”
Gaines, aged 23, a year after her second suicide attempt and her bipolar disorder diagnosis.Paige Gaines
“I was also self-medicating. So, I was smoking [marijuana] a lot and I was drinking, which didn’t help. If you could imagine not sleeping for two to three days at a time and being heavily under the influence on top of having the stress of finances and then school, and not being in school and really trying to figure out where you want to be in your life at 22 years old. It really just proved to be too much.”
For Gaines, her bipolar diagnosis was welcome.
“I was very relieved,” she says. “A space in me was like, ‘I knew something wasn’t right.’ So, I wasn’t too surprised, but I definitely was relieved because I was getting answers to questions that I had my entire life.”
It’s her experience of silently battling depression — the little girl who outwardly presented a “happy face” while inwardly feeling suicidal — that makes Gaines want to lift the veil of secrecy and shame off mental illness, especially in the Black community.
Asked what concerned friends and family should do if they suspect that a loved one is feeling suicidal, she has a simple solution — just ask them.
“There’s a myth that if you ask it, you’re implanting that idea in their mind and that’s not true,” Gaines says. “You’re actually creating some relief for them. You’re saying, ‘Hey, I see you. I see that you’re struggling and I’m just wondering if you’re thinking of not wanting to be here anymore.'”
Help can be something as simple as sharing the Crisis Text Line number, 741-741 (one of Gaines’ favorite resources).
“If you’re having a rough day, they’ll text you back and they’ll walk you through a conversation,” she says. “They’ll give you resources located within your area.”
Aside from her work as a suicide prevention and intervention instructor, Gaines is the founder of911 Sane Jane, a mental health consulting agency. She wants to be transparent about her personal journey to encourage Black people to talk openly about depression and suicide.
“We deserve to be in therapy and happy and at peace and being able to have a healthy mind,” she says. “Healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit and being able to progress in life. We deserve it. We deserve to live.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go tosuicidepreventionlifeline.org.
source: people.com
