‘My Suicide Story’ is a web docuseries featuring individuals who have attempted suicide sharing stories of survival and triumph. The series follows five individuals as they discuss their battles with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder, with the hope of reassuring others who may find themselves in a similar situation that they’re not alone. We caught up with its creator, Joe Massa, to discuss the project further.
Thank you for agreeing to this interview with Occhi Magazine. Firstly, before we discuss the documentary, please tell us more about you and the beginning of this project?
I’m an actor and director from West Haven, Connecticut. Since I was a child, I’ve had a love for movies and television, and that love eventually evolved into a passion for acting and filmmaking as I grew older and began to study.
This project actually began spontaneously after having a conversation with one of my close friends a few years ago. He explained how he had attempted to take his life almost a decade earlier and I was completely taken by surprise because I had known him for years and never knew this. After he told me the full story of what happened and the events that led up to his attempt, I sort of casually asked him if he would be willing to share his story on camera and that’s how this series started.
After shooting his story I uploaded it to YouTube and began receiving dozens of survivors from across the country reaching out requesting to share their stories as well. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get to many of them outside of the Tri-state area. So far, I have 5 episodes and have dozens of more survivors lined up to shoot but unfortunately, everything is put on pause right now due to the pandemic.
For our readers, please share the synopsis of the documentary film series and what viewers can expect?
My Suicide Story is a web docuseries that features survivors of attempted suicide who share their stories of survival and triumph over their attempts to help raise awareness for suicide and demystify suicidal ideations.
Viewers can expect a raw, first-hand depiction of the events leading up to the survivors’ attempts to take their lives, how they attempted – in detail – to carry out these attempts and how they survived and ultimately overcame them.
The information in these stories might be difficult for certain people to hear and can be graphic at times but I felt that it was necessary to let these survivors tell their stories without censoring any part of them. This series isn’t meant to entertain, it’s meant to inform and raise awareness and the only way to do that is to show how much pain these individuals were in.
What or who has influenced your approach to documentary filmmaking?
Other filmmakers. I have always been fascinated by well-made documentaries/docuseries and I find them to be an extremely powerful learning tool. I was always a visual learner, so for me having visuals to go along with a carefully told story is amazing. Up until this series, I had no experience creating documentary-style films – only short and feature-length films – so I made it a point to watch and study dozens of well-crafted documentaries, made by great filmmakers, focused on how they were made, and used what I learned to better my craft.
One other person who has influenced my approach would be my brother, Christian Massa. He is also an actor and filmmaker who has assisted with this series and is always offering creative advice on how to improve it. It’s really a great benefit to have two minds that think alike, yet differently, collaborating on the same project. We’re taking the skills that we learned from this series and are currently in the beginning stages of co-producing a separate feature-length documentary together, which we hope to release sometime in 2021.
What have been the most challenging aspects of making this series?
The most challenging aspect for me in creating this series has definitely been experiencing these stories first-hand, from the survivors themselves. It’s very difficult to sit in front of another human being and listen to them describe, in vivid detail, how they wanted to die and acted on it. It’s not so much the details of the attempt that makes it difficult for me, it’s more of the energy and emotion that’s being conveyed when they’re telling their stories. You can feel the sadness and hopelessness that each of them felt during the time of their attempts and all those emotions really took a toll on me. Although I was only listening to these stories I still absorbed their pain in a way and it was really tough to endure.
The series has been well received and covered by several leading journals. Do you feel society is becoming more responsive to understanding and addressing this issue?
I feel that this series has contributed and brought awareness – on a very small scale – to suicide and to what suicidal ideations are. I’ve personally had dozens of people reach out to me directly and tell me that they never knew there was a term that described these thoughts. With that said, I think society is quick to deem anyone experiencing suicidal ideations (suicidal thoughts) as crazy or mentally ill and I truly believe it’s this stigma society tends to have that must change. The individuals suffering from these types of thoughts are already experiencing the hardest times of their lives and this societal pressure only adds fuel to the fire. What we need is sympathy, to be a lot less judgmental, and to learn the possible signs and symptoms that someone might exhibit when suffering from these thoughts.
Suicide rates went up more than 30% in half of the states since 1999 and more than half of people who died by suicide did not have a known mental health condition, according to the CDC. Even more shocking, the rate of suicide among those aged 10 to 24 increased by nearly 60% between 2007 and 2018. Obviously, this is an epidemic that’s not only getting worse but starting to affect our younger generations, which is terrifying.
- https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/pdf/vs-0618-suicide-H.pdf
- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-11-508.pdf
Where can we find more information and support?
Anyone experiencing suicidal ideations can contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by calling 1-800-273-8255 or texting the Crisis Text Line with the word HOME to 741741
Where can our readers find out more about you and your projects?
- www.instagram.com/joemassa
- www.twitter.com/itsjoemassa
- www.mysuicidestory.org
- https://sports.yahoo.com/my-suicide-story-ending-stigma-of-mental-health-163740735.html
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/06/07/coronavirus-police-violence-boost-risks-rising-black-youth-suicide/2300765001/
- https://medium.com/invisible-illness/how-two-brothers-are-using-film-to-fight-mental-illness-c9aef89b343f
We wish Joe continued success with this project and encourage anyone who requires help or information to follow the above links.
Photo credits Jon Cospito (main) and Deborah Lopez. Stills, courtesy of Joe Massa
About Author
