Death By Silver Bullet

September is Suicide Awareness Month

For some men, divorce and high-conflict custody battles can become far more than the end of a marriage. The statistics show that men who are falsely accused of abuse (the so called Silver Bullet) are 10-20 times more likely to commit suicide than divorced women. This type of divorce can mean losing daily contact with their children, removed from their dream home for no reason, damage to their careers and reputations, financial devastation, closure of a lifelong business, isolation from friends and family, and the feeling that no one believes or hears them.

Abuse can take many forms.

Sometimes it comes through false allegations of abuse to take away everything that matters to them. this is known as the “silver bullet approach”.

Sometimes it means contacting a man’s new employer and labeling him a “wife beater” in an attempt to damage his career.

Sometimes it takes the form of parental alienation—repeated accusations and negative statements that gradually affect a child’s relationship with the other parent because what dad says “doesn’t add up” or match what moms story is.

Sometimes it means repeatedly calling law enforcement during a parenting dispute or misrepresenting whose parenting time it actually is even up to 12 calls in a 6 hour time frame.

Sometimes it means sitting outside someone’s home for an extended period, photographing or recording neighbors, their homes, and their vehicles until those neighbors become uncomfortable even helping with something as simple as getting your children to and from school.

Sometimes it comes in the form of being chased down in your own neighborhood and menaced as you go home just so you know they can.

Regardless of gender, nobody should underestimate what prolonged conflict, isolation, accusations, and separation from one’s children can do to a person’s mental health.

This month, when we talk about suicide awareness, we should also talk about the people who may be suffering quietly behind closed doors. Check on the father who suddenly doesn’t see his children. Check on the person whose reputation has been destroyed. Check on the friend who keeps saying he’s fine even though his entire life has changed. Check on the man that is isolated and feels alone.

And if you’re the one going through it: don’t let someone else’s actions determine the ending of your story. Stay here. Keep showing up. Keep fighting to be the parent, friend, and person you know yourself to be. Your children need your presence far more than they need you to win every battle.