Stepping into a professional role that involves suicide prevention is a full-circle experience for me. I am both a suicide attempt survivor, and a suicide loss survivor. These experiences enhance and inform my commitment to suicide prevention and make me emotionally vulnerable both within and on behalf of this work. Additionally, I have an invisible disability: anxiety disorder. I am both insider and researcher.
I am a third- generation Caucasian settler and guest of T’kemlups te Secwepemc. My great-grandparents arrived in Toronto from England (maternal) and Scotland (paternal) early in the 20th century. They built their lives primarily in Victoria on Vancouver Island, B.C.. I am also distantly related to settlers from Scotland who chose South American destinations, instead of Canada, as their new home. I was raised in what was then the working-class town of Port Moody a (now-gentrified) suburb of Vancouver, B.C. by card-carrying union workers. Connection to history and community are important aspects of this work.
I feel deeply connected to nature, and in particular, the ocean. This comes from many childhood excursions by sailboat through British Columbia’s inside passage, and as far north as Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). I have lived in T’kemlups/Kamloops since 2006, and have come to know and love this terrain, and these lakes and rivers. I acknowledge nature as a significant source of healing. Connecting wellness to nature is important to this work.
I have benefitted from generational wealth, and although a first-generation university graduate, my access to higher education, including graduate studies, can also be traced to class and economic privilege. Still, I feel myself an academic outsider, unable to secure a permanent faculty position, and therefore, to formally contribute to scholarship. Awareness of systemic barriers is important to this work.
Politically, I am a feminist and aspiring ally. I am part of an inter-racial family, and an interest in cultural diversity informs how I wish to experience the world. I am an artist and writer. Self-awareness and reflexivity are important to this work.
Finally, I am an upper middle-class, married, heterosexual white woman, and I benefit from all the cultural privileges that come with those categories. Humility is important to this work.
Pamela Fry, July 21, 2021
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