In this guest blog post, Dennis Gillan, a mental health and suicide prevention advocate and professional speaker, shares his perspective on the intersections of suicide and hazing prevention and calls readers to bring conversations about these topics forward. Dennis serves as the Executive Director of the Half a Sorrow Foundation.

Dennis Gillan, suicide prevention and mental health advocate, photo clapping on stage
Guest writer: Dennis Gillan, Executive Director & Mental Health Advocate at Half A Sorrow

Guest writer: Dennis Gillan | March 2025

When I first volunteered to do a guest blog on hazing and suicide prevention, I dove in hard trying to do all the research I could on hazing to quickly become an anti-hazing expert. Halfway through the process, I was reminded that a good writer writes about what they know, and unfortunately, I know way too much about suicide prevention. So, I’m here to share about the ways these topics intersect.

How did I obtain this knowledge? The hard way. My name is Dennis Gillan, and I lost two brothers to suicide. My older brother Mark is forever 21, and my younger brother Matthew is forever 23. It hurts to even type it, but here we are. Here we f&^#ing are! Sorry for the bad word, but the intensity and vigor feels appropriate here.

Some quick facts about suicide:

In 2022, 49,476 people died by suicide. Suicide has been on the rise, but in 2019 and 2020 suicides went down—which proves we can reduce this particular cause of death. There is a real bright spot in all of the data; in 2022, rates of suicide from adolescents and young adults age 15 to 24 declined from 15.15 per 100,000 to a suicide rate of 13.62 per 100,000 (See graph below). 

The graph below shows the decline in the age group 15-24. That is progress we should celebrate, and this age group covers most traditional college students.

from the CDC report, The graph below shows the decline in the age group 15-24. That is progress we should celebrate, and this age group covers most traditional college students.
Source: Published statistics on suicide from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Data & Statistics Fatal Injury Report for 2022, retrieved May 11, 2024.

Depending on what state you live in, suicide is the number two or number three cause of death for people aged 15-24. Accidents are the leading cause of death and homicide and suicide flip-flop between number 2 and 3. We know that suicide is a complex problem, with multiple root causes, and thus requiring a multi-pronged solution. By digging into the causation of suicide, we can see the ways in which hazing may be a confounding factor, an additional stressor. 

What causes people to have suicidal thoughts? 

The next two paragraphs from a blog published by UC Davis breaks down the causes into two distinct buckets: internal and external factors. 

“There are many factors that may lead a person to have thoughts of suicide. Mental health conditions and depression often – though not always – play a major role. For the sake of this blog, we will call these internal factors.

Many stressful situations and circumstances can lead to suicide, such as relationship problems, bullying, economic hardship, and physical health problems. These are also linked to greater risk for depression. Outside stressors will be considered external factors and this is where hazing enters the chat.”

Hazing, a form of interpersonal violence that is similar but distinct from bullying, can be considered an external factor as well. While hazing and bullying are different, both are harmful for your mental health. According to the National Study of Student Hazing, we know hazing behaviors are often rationalized as “tradition,” a “ritual,”  a “rite of passage,” or harmless pranks or antics – yet we know hazing can have dire consequences. Hazing causes harm- emotionally, physically, mentally and has resulted in over 100 hazing-related deaths since 2000. This is where our worlds collide—hazing can lead to suicide.

Let’s go upstream from suicide and talk about mental health. A recent article looked at the 40,618 youth suicide decedents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Violent Death Reporting System for the years 2010-2021, and the researchers found 24,192 decedents (59.6%) had no previously documented mental health diagnosis. I encourage you to read the article; however, as a reader without formal research training, I will make a few bold assumptions about the data shared: 

Based on the article, roughly 40% of the youth (ages 10-24) who died by suicide had a mental health diagnosis (n= 16,426), which means 60% did not. Now this may be an indictment of how we screen people for a mental health condition, so let’s assume 100% of all these folks were fragile, and we lost all of them to suicide. All 40,618 of them. It is so sad to think about the loss of lives, particularly individuals as young as 10.

Suicide is a complex problem that requires a complex solution, and at this moment I am having trouble thinking that 40,000+ youth thought this was their best option. Growing up is stressful enough. Why would anyone want to add an additional stressor like hazing to a vulnerable young life?

If we view hazing as an external stressor– and it is– none of the folks we lost to suicide walked into an organization or joined a club or team with a sign that said “I am suicidal, go easy on me.” 

For that matter, none of the folks who are alive and in your organization have that sign on them either, but we know from surveys from people that are alive that at least once in the past year:

  • 28% of undergraduate students experienced depression
  • 36% experienced overwhelming anxiety
  • over 78% of students were experiencing feelings of moderate to high stress

Source: National College Health Assessment (2023)

Of students who have been hazed, 49.2% reported feeling moderate or high emotional distress. The data shows that the majority of college students experience stressors and many experience fragile mental health states. With this said, is it ever a good time to haze? You are smart and know the answer— no. It is never a good time to haze and there is never a good reason to haze someone, so let’s stop it altogether.

The dip in suicides from 15-24 tells me that this group or generation of kids gets it. They are smarter and more resilient than perhaps we give them credit for, and they are willing to talk out loud about mental health. This is a good thing in my line of work—-suicide prevention. Let’s apply this same technique to hazing, let’s talk about it out loud and stop it now before we lose one more person to a suicide caused by hazing. 

One suicide is too many, and you are reading an article written by a guy who had to go through two of them. Trust me on this one, and thanks for reading this far!

In the above article, we used a fair amount of data and statistics. Behind all that data are real people, living real lives that were cut short due to hazing. Below is a table of the good folks we have lost to hazing. Remember their names!

To wrap it up, let’s remember this: Everyone is trying their best to get through life. We all know life can be hard. Let’s not make it any harder for another human by hazing them. They may already be on the edge and hazing may put them right over it and they could make a forever decision like my brothers did and die by suicide. Stop hazing period. It really is that simple. 

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About the Author:

Dennis Gillan has been featured on FOX, CBS, ABC, and NBC, because he is a nationally known speaker on mental health and suicide prevention. He is an author, podcaster, and TEDx speaker, as well as the Executive Director of the Half a Sorrow Foundation, which aims to improve mental health by promoting real conversations. His specialty lies in breaking the stigma surrounding mental health and teaching people to engage in and lead conversations that lead to help.Dennis is a sought-after trainer for several suicide prevention programs and the founder of the Camo Hat Club, a global initiative to encourage men to discuss their mental health. Dennis has had the honor of speaking to over 15,000 leaders and teams from small businesses, nonprofits, colleges, and multi-billion dollar enterprises such as UBS Financial, NBC Universal, Ocean Spray, and the US Department of Defense. His mission is to empower leaders to engage in conversations about mental health both at work and at home. The life you save may be your own, and you’ll be grateful you hired him to speak. Dennis maintains three websites: www.dennisgillan.com, www.halfasorrow.org, and www.camohatclub.com, all designed to further the mission of helping others with their mental health.

You can watch his TEDx talk on loneliness here: