I have been reading a news item recently about people getting semicolon tattoos. Project Semicolon began as a call for people to draw a “;” on their body to highlight a range of mental health issues including depression, suicide, addiction and self-harm. A tattoo makes this statement permanent.
The idea is based on the fact that an author uses a semicolon when a sentence could come to an end, but instead chooses to continue it. With semicolon tattoos, “the author is you and the sentence is your life”. It’s a metaphor for the moment a person contemplates suicide, and yet chooses to continue through their difficulties.
So if you have had suicidal thoughts in the past, but then chosen not to act, the semicolon is a way of communicating that to the world, and raising the issue of life beyond suicidal ideation and mental health issues.
It’s a way of starting to express what has often been locked inside for years. It’s a way of acknowledging who you really are. It’s about communicating with the world around. It’s about engaging with a community. It’s a bold statement about the fact that you have chosen to continue your story; that you have chosen life.
It seems that there are many who dislike the project and who speak out against it. Personally, I think that anything that gets people talking more about mental health issues, depression, suicidal thoughts etc as part of everyday life can only be beneficial.
As a visible symbol, it also is easily recognisable and, I imagine, would enable those who have the tattoo to engage with others who understand or who have been in similar situations.
Choosing life over suicide is a significant event in someone’s life. It affects far more people than we could ever imagine. When I was working with Samaritans many years ago, we used to say that those who talk about it (suicide) rarely go on to do it, but it’s the ones who don’t talk about it who are most likely to follow through with it.
If it gets people talking more about mental health issues, and enables those who have contemplated suicide in the past to talk more about it, then I’m for it.
Simple. Powerful. Effective.
