Bringing suicide out of the shadows

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Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide, suicide attempts and suicide notes. Some readers may find these topics difficult or distressing.

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by Page Leggett

Melissa Steele describes her son, Keeghan McCormack, as “hilarious and super-smart.”

“His teachers always said he was the best kid to have in class,” she said. “He was quirky, into art, loved ska music and was loving and kind to everybody. He was an absolutely amazing person.”

Steele and her son were especially close; he shared everything with her. So, in 2013, when Keeghan died by suicide at 19, it came as a shock. He didn’t leave a note, leaving Steele with a lifetime of unanswerable questions.

Earlier this year, when a friend told Steele, a local stage actor, that Charlotte’s Off-Broadway (COB) theater company and nonprofit Mental Health Reimagined were producing the play “Right Before I Go” – which runs Sept. 10-13 at The VAPA Center’s Black Box Theatre – she wanted to be a part of it. 

“Right Before I Go” is woven together from real suicide notes left by people — veterans, bullied youth, members of the LGBTQ+ community and suicide attempt survivors.

Stan Zimmerman, who’s written for “The Golden Girls” and “Gilmore Girls,” wrote the play after losing a dear friend to suicide. It’s patterned after “The Vagina Monologues,” a series of vignettes based on interviews with real women who opened up about sex, sexual abuse and their bodies. 

COB's producing artistic director, Anne Lambert, heard about the play last fall when she produced and directed Zimmerman's comedy, "Meet & Greet," in Charlotte. He told her "Right Before I Go" was "getting a lot of attention" nationally and that it would be ideal for COB's intimate, 56-seat black box theater. 

Amy Campbell, the director of COB’s production, is a suicide attempt survivor herself. She lived with undiagnosed bipolar disorder until 2020, 15 years after her attempt.

“I had always thought that getting that diagnosis would be the end of my life,” she said. “But really, it was the beginning.”

After reading the script, Campbell said she “felt like the right person to do it …  I felt like I could handle creating the safe space.”

That safe space includes post-show talkbacks facilitated by a therapist. Diamond James of Breaking Down Stigma will be there for two performances, and therapists from the Santé Mobile Crisis Team from Mecklenburg County will be on hand for the other performances. 

But people who come to one of the four performances can stick around afterward and find company and comfort. 

“The space Amy and her team are creating is one where all emotions can coexist, even if those emotions aren’t neat,” James said. “It’s natural to fear that, if those emotions come up, will they overtake me? But this is going to be a safe container for emotions to come up and people not feel overwhelmed.”

She adds that audience members will have “the freedom and choice to leave or stay. Tears are welcome. However you show up, there will be support for you.”

For Campbell, who’s also an actor and a photographer, creativity was once a struggle.

“My creativity felt tangled inside my untreated bipolar disorder,” she said. “At times, it was really beautiful … or incredibly destructive. And at times I couldn’t tell where the illness ended and the artistry began.”

She founded Mental Health Reimagined in 2024 as “the culmination of my journey through the challenges of living with an undiagnosed mental illness,” she said. “The healing arts helped me help others, and they’re very accessible.”

James, the therapist, cautions that the arts alone aren’t enough: “You cannot paint or dance your way out of a depression,” she said, “but there are creative tools people can use under the direction of a therapist that help them cope with or come out of a mental health issue.”

She adds: “Our healing sometimes comes from being in community. Having healthy relationships can sometimes address some of the struggles and stressors we’re having. There are multiple avenues for people to get to a place of feeling well.”

As part of “Right Before I Go,” Mental Health Reimagined’s The Bridges Project, which is a traveling interactive art exhibit designed to end suicide and eliminate the stigma, will be represented by four 10-foot string towers surrounding the audience. In addition, there will be large-scale portraits of suicide attempt survivors by Charlotte photographer Jeff Cravotta.

Given the heavy subject, the play won’t be for everyone. But Campbell thinks it has broad appeal. She said the play is right for “anyone who’s ever loved another human being and wondered how that person is really doing.”

Her goal, or at least one of them, is to “help make it OK not to be OK.” Before her diagnosis, she never felt there was anyone she could talk to about her struggles. She wrote in her own suicide note years ago: “I'm not fine. I’m so sorry to leave you with such a mess. I am sad. I am selfish. I hurt so much.”

She says the play is for “anyone who wants to better understand the invisible struggles people carry. Most importantly, it’s for people who think this subject has nothing to do with them. If we all become a little bit better at noticing one another, asking one more question, creating one more moment of authentic connection, then I think we’ll begin to change the story.”

Campbell stresses that connection saves lives: “I thought if I said the word ‘suicide,’ it would make somebody think about it or do it,” she said. “But I now think we need to say the word. It’s the second leading cause of death in teens. If we keep suicide in the shadows, we may lose a hell of a lot more people. As soon as I said the word, the sun came out.”

James agrees that talking about pain and suicide will not lead to suicidal behavior.

Page Leggett is a Charlotte-based freelance writer. Reach her at [email protected].

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