Suicide Prevention Month

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) for doing this. It is really something that we need to highlight more.

I am glad to be here tonight. I had forgotten that this was the night you were going to be here. I have something that we are going to be talking about here in a little bit, but this is perfect timing for it because it is so important.

The issues that we deal with and the seriousness of this topic is the stigma. And still being in the Air Force and looking at how the military has dealt with this issue is something that is frustrating for those of us who do it all the time.

I was in the Navy for a short time. I got out for a little bit. I went back in the Air Force. And in my 15, 16 years in the military, we have been through, like, four different programs on how to help servicemembers with suicide.

The bottom line is that we don't need more courses. We need just more care for our airmen and our soldiers and our sailors, and looking at it from a perspective of caring about the other person. It is not a course; it is caring. It is looking at signs and knowing that there are people who are out there hurting, but also taking an account of what I have heard many of the speakers tonight talk about, and that is the issue of mental health.

My daughter, who I love dearly, has spina bifida. She cannot walk. She has not walked at all since birth. She is paralyzed from the waist down. If she was to roll in here tonight or to roll anywhere, one of the first things that we see so many times is that people react with sympathy a little bit toward Jordan. She is in a wheelchair, and it is sort of natural. When you see somebody with a handicap or something that is not normal, Mr. Speaker, they react with sympathy.

But my question is: What is the difference in someone who has a visible need, if you would, and the reaction that we get when someone says, My mind is hurting?

Sympathy doesn't come many times then. We believe you can just shake it off and move on.

Mental health is an issue that is not just shake off and move on. It is something that, if someone comes to us and says, I am struggling, I am depressed, or I have these problems, that we reach out in loving kindness, just as we would to a sweet young lady who happens to roll in life and not walk, my daughter.

When we reach out in love, when we reach out in compassion, we begin to break the darkness of those who are contemplating suicide.

In studies of those who have thought about suicide or attempted suicide, their question to them was: What was it like the moment that you were thinking about this or when you were struggling with it?

I have heard so many people share their own personal feelings, but one person stuck out to me. They said that they felt like they were sort of in blinders on all sides and all they saw was, like, a billboard that said: You have no hope.

That is all they saw.

It is our job as human beings--not partisan, not Republican, Democrat, politician, nonpolitician--it is our job as human beings to look at each other as we say and believe that every life is a gift from God. And if every life, I believe, is a gift from God, then every life has value. And no matter what the situation may be, we are to respond in love.

So tonight I thank the gentlewoman for taking this time, just a moment, as we share. There are a lot of bills, a lot of solutions, a lot of things that we could come to. But I think the greatest thing that we can have in a time when we think about suicide, we think about our veterans, we think about those in our lives who may be struggling with mental health and other problems, is to simply look for those what I call the unexpected times when you are ready to go do something and something interrupts you, what I call sometimes maybe the divine interruption. Those times when somebody that you haven't thought about in a while comes to your mind, that time when a coworker or a friend comes to you and says: You know, I am not feeling right. Instead of rushing through our day and going to the next meeting and going to the next place, Mr. Speaker, maybe we just need to stop and say: How about a cup of coffee? How about a glass of water? How about I just sit here and let's talk about it? Because when we can break the tunnel vision that there is no hope, if you can begin to chip at that tunnel, then the light will come in, and they will see that others care. To me, that is the greatest call of our humanity, is to show love for others.

For one to take their own life because they believe they are unloved is a situation that we all need to fight against, and I am thankful to have the opportunity to highlight that tonight.

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