What we can still learn from Kurt Cobain’s death

When Kurt Cobain died by suicide 30 years ago this month, I was a teen who listened to grunge music but didn’t count his band Nirvana amongst my favorite acts. Still, I found his death tragic and shocking. Cobain had been positioned as the prophet of my generation.

I vividly recall how some adults scorned him as selfish for taking his own life, a way of framing suicide that has long been rejected by experts, attempt survivors, and loss survivors as inaccurate and stigmatizing.

Earlier this year, as I was reflecting on the upcoming anniversary of Cobain's death, I watched the authorized 2015 documentary Cobain: Montage of Heck. While some have blamed his suicide on the isolation and demands of fame, the film unexpectedly depicts the many risk factors Cobain experienced prior to stardom.

He’d previously attempted suicide, lived with untreated depression and chronic pain, used substances, and had what’s known as an adverse childhood experience in the form of long-term household instability related to his parent’s divorce, all of which are now known risk factors for suicide. He also ultimately had access to lethal means.

You probably know someone with a few of these risk factors. You may recognize your own trials when you reflect on Cobain’s suffering.

For the past 15 years, I’ve covered suicide as a journalist. I’ve written about the suicide deaths of other celebrities, including Robin Williams and Cobain’s contemporary, Soungarden frontman Chris Cornell. I reported on the military suicide deaths that surged during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

During that time, I’ve watched the stigma surrounding suicide plummet. We increasingly treat suicide as an outcome of numerous challenging social, economic, and psychological factors, not a choice defined by self-absorption. Yet, we haven’t come nearly far enough.?

The way we talk about suicide may have changed dramatically since Cobain's death, but we still lack the research funding, high-quality mental health care, and critical societal supports needed to prevent more deaths. In fact, suicide rates have increased since the early 2000s.

In 2020, suicide deaths ranked as the 12th leading cause of mortality of adults in the U.S. Suicide is the second and third leading cause amongst children 10 to 14 and teens and young adults ages 15 to 24, respectively. While this is alarming, there are opportunities within our collective reach to make a profound difference.?

Dr. Mitch Prinstein, a researcher who’s spent decades studying suicide risk factors, says Congress could immediately pass bipartisan legislation that invests $500 million in research on youth mental health. The funding could also help place mental health professionals in schools, where teachers and administrative staff are overwhelmed by the youth mental health crisis.?

But connecting youth to help isn’t enough. Prinstein, chief science officer of the American Psychological Association, believes we also need more mental health professionals who actually feel confident treating suicidal patients, both youth and adults.

Currently, many clinicians-in-training spend surprisingly minimal time on suicide. As a result, some may turn down clients struggling with suicidal thoughts and behaviors once in practice. If the accrediting bodies that evaluate mental health training programs required suicide prevention and treatment as part of the curricula, it could fundamentally change the quality of care available, according to Prinstein.?

It’s similarly important to sustain and advance efforts that provide suicide prevention services to marginalized groups, says Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth, chief medical officer of The Jed Foundation (JED) . She’s noticed a real change in the level of services available to LGBTQ youth, and says that organizations like Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective: BEAM, Black Girls Smile, and Hopebound offer examples of “affirming spaces” designed for youth of color.?

While it’s critical to improve the quality and accessibility of mental health care for all suicidal patients, there’s more that can be done. Prevention expert DeQuincy Lezine argues that we need to elevate short-term interventions, like safety planning, that give people practical strategies for finding their way out of crisis if it strikes again.?

Those are pivotal moments for someone at risk of suicide, but Meiffren-Lézine says we need to look upstream too, in order to prevent life experiences that contribute to heightened suicide risk, such as childhood trauma and poverty.

And as we grapple with what the U.S. Surgeon General has described as an "epidemic of loneliness and isolation," prevention efforts aimed at reducing risk should focus on creating connection and community, says Erickson-Schroth, noting that loneliness is a risk factor for suicide.

While there is widespread agreement on the importance of a comprehensive approach, funding those efforts for collaboration can be harder. Meiffren-Lézine says it requires bureaucratic flexibility, with an emphasis on breaking down the “artificial barriers” between agencies that fund health research and interventions.?

When Cobain died 30 years ago, these recommendations weren’t part of the popular conversation. Without understanding the risk that had compounded over the course of Cobain's life and the ways in which he may have been failed by the mental health care system, some blamed him instead.

This is not to say that Cobain’s fate was sealed but to acknowledge that certain life experiences increase our risk for feeling hopeless. Telling a story about how fame doomed Cobain is simpler than talking about the risk factors he shared with millions of other people — and how we might reduce such risk for everyone.

The vast majority of people who attempt suicide and survive never try again. They can go on to find meaning, purpose, and connection in their lives. Meiffren-Lézine, director of the Lived Experience Academy for suicide attempt survivors, uses a four-stage model that starts with stabilization and ends with growth and goal-setting.?

If we expect people who’ve been suicidal to make this transformation, we need to build a world in which that change feels possible.?

If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988; the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860; or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741.