The People Who Look Like They’re Doing Fine

One of my best friends died by suicide.

For the 11 years I knew him, I would have described him as one of the happiest people I knew.

He was funny and kind. He had an infectious laugh and a way of making people feel comfortable around him. He checked on people. He asked how your day was going. He cared about how everyone else was doing.

I never knew he was struggling.

That's one of the hardest things about losing someone this way: realizing that a person you thought you knew so well could have been carrying something you never saw.

For a long time, I wanted there to be an explanation I could find if I looked hard enough. A conversation I could replay. A warning sign I could recognize in hindsight. Something that would make his death make sense.

But life isn't always that simple.

Sometimes, the person who is hurting is the person who looks okay.

We Have an Idea of What Struggling Looks Like

When we picture someone experiencing a mental health crisis, we often imagine that we'll be able to tell.

Someone who has withdrawn from everyone. Someone who cries all the time. Someone who stops showing up. Someone who tells us that they aren't okay.

Sometimes, that's what struggling looks like.

Sometimes, it's not.

Sometimes it looks like attending school, going to work, answering texts, making plans, and laughing with your friends.

Sometimes it looks like being the person everyone else comes to when they are having a bad day.

Sometimes it looks like saying "I'm fine" because you don't know what else to say.

And sometimes, it looks like my friend.

In 2024, 48,824 people in the United States died by suicide.

But numbers have a strange way of making something deeply human feel distant.

Forty-eight thousand eight hundred twenty-four isn't just a number.

It's someone's son.

Someone's daughter.

Someone's relative.

Someone's best friend.

Someone whose name still appears in a phone that will never ring again.

Every statistic represents a person whose life was far more complicated, meaningful, and loved than the way it ended.

We Tell People to Talk, But Have We Made It Easy?

We've gotten much better at saying that it's okay to not be okay.

We put it on posters. We post it on Instagram. We tell our friends to take care of themselves.

But telling someone they can talk isn't the same as making them feel like they can actually say something.

For many people, vulnerability is something they're taught to avoid long before they ever have the words to describe what they're feeling.

Be strong.

Don't cry.

Shake it off.

Man up.

Handle it yourself.

Don't be a burden.

Most of the time, no one sits a child down and tells them their emotions are unacceptable.

They learn it in smaller ways.

They learn which feelings get comfort and which get teasing. They learn which problems are worth talking about and which ones they should handle themselves.

Eventually, "I'm fine" can become less of an answer and more of a reflex.

Maybe that's why asking someone how they're doing matters.

Not the automatic version.

Not the "How are you?" we ask while already looking at our phones.

Actually asking.

And sometimes asking again.

Maybe nothing comes from it.

Maybe they laugh and tell you they're fine again.

Maybe they change the subject.

But maybe, just maybe, they tell you the truth.

And if they do, you don't have to know exactly what to say.

You Don't Have to Fix Someone to Help Them

I think we're often afraid of difficult conversations because we're afraid of getting them wrong.

What if we say something stupid?

What if we make things worse?

What if we don't know how to help?

But maybe we've misunderstood what helping someone actually requires.

You don't have to solve another person's pain to care about it.

Sometimes you just listen.

You don't immediately tell them it will all work out. You don't compare their pain to someone else's. You don't turn their confession into a lesson.

You let them say the thing they've been afraid to say.

And you stay.

Asking for help isn't a failure.

Needing help isn't a failure.

Being unable to carry everything alone isn't a failure.

It's human.

I Wish I Had Known

There are things I still remember about my friend that have nothing to do with how he died.

I remember the nights we spent playing manhunt around the neighborhood until it got dark.

I remember building snowmen together on snow days.

I remember sitting next to each other in class.

I remember roasting marshmallows over the fire pit during summer nights.

And I remember running to the mailbox to see which class we had been placed in for the next school year, hoping we'd get to sit next to each other again.

Those are the things I want to remember.

Not the circumstances of his death, but the ordinary pieces of a childhood we got to share.

The nights that felt endless.

The snow days that felt like they would never end.

The summers that seemed like they would last forever.

The little moments that meant nothing at the time but mean everything now.

When someone dies by suicide, I think it's natural to look backward.

You replay conversations. You examine memories. You wonder whether something that seemed insignificant at the time meant something more.

You wonder what you could have done differently.

I have thought about those things too.

But I don't want the lesson of my friend's death to be that I should have somehow been able to see through him.

We cannot always know what another person is carrying.

We cannot read minds.

And we cannot make ourselves responsible for knowing something someone was never able to tell us.

What we can do is make telling the truth a little easier.

We can become people who don't flinch when someone admits they're struggling.

We can stop treating vulnerability like weakness.

We can ask questions and actually listen to the answers.

Maybe my friend would still be here if he had shared his struggles.

Maybe he wouldn't.

I'll never know.

But I do know this:

I wish he had never felt like he had to carry whatever he was carrying alone.

And I wish more people knew they don't have to.

September Will End. The Conversation Shouldn't.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

For one month, we're reminded to talk about suicide, mental health, prevention, hope, and the people we've lost.

But September is only a month.

People will still struggle in October.

They'll still struggle in November.

They'll struggle on ordinary Tuesday afternoons when people stop posting heartfelt graphics to their Instagram Stories.

So ask.

Ask your friend.

Ask your family.

Ask the person who always seems okay.

Ask the person who is always checking on everyone else.

And if they tell you they're struggling, don't be afraid of the conversation.

You don't need the perfect words.

You don't need a perfect solution.

You don't even need to understand everything they're feeling.

You just need to be willing to stay.

Because the most important thing we can give someone isn't an answer.

It's the reminder that they don't have to carry the question alone.

My friend was deeply loved.

He still is.

And when I think about him now, I don't want the first thing I remember to be how he died.

I want to remember how he lived.

And maybe that's what I hope we remember when we talk about suicide.

Not only the lives we've lost, but the lives that are still here.

The people we haven't asked yet.

The conversations we haven't had yet.

The person sitting beside us who might need someone to ask a second time.

"How are you?"

"No, really. How are you?"

September will end.

The conversation shouldn't.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, you don't have to face it alone. Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, where you can connect with a trained crisis counselor.