The first step toward ending suicide is to talk about it.

There’s a difference, Evan Marsh tells me, in how the family of someone who dies of natural causes or an accident is treated compared to the treatment shown to the family of someone who dies by suicide.

It’s about the casseroles—casseroles, and other symbolic outpourings of sympathy that normally happen after a loss. Those in the former category often receive food, flowers and kind words from friends and acquaintances concerned about their welfare. Those in the latter category often receive nothing.

It’s not out of cruelty. Most people don’t know what to do and, as a result, do nothing.

Marsh is assistant director of grants and operations for Suicide Prevention Service, a program of the nonprofit Family Service Agency of the Central Coast. He’s also a graduate student at CSU Monterey Bay, working on his master’s degree in social work.

He’s talking to me for a few reasons: It’s National Suicide Prevention week (Sept. 10-16) and on the Central Coast, the week will lead into the service’s 11th annual Coastal Trail Walk Sept. 16, an event that offers community members a chance to join together in a celebration of life, to remember loved ones and to help support the services of Suicide Prevention Service.

It’s not an arduous trek. The group will start out at Window on the Bay, walk (or roller skate, or scooter—there’s not a lot of rules here) to just past the Monterey Bay Aquarium, then turn around and walk (or skate or scooter) back. Pets are welcome, kids are welcome. More than an opportunity to exercise, it’s an opportunity to hopefully remove some of the stigma from the most stigmatized of subjects.

“It’s a much more common issue than people believe, and by talking about it, you form a community. With a community comes support,” Marsh says. “We’d much rather people talk about it than not talk. It takes a lot of the mystery out of it.”

Suicide Prevention Service’s outreach tries to normalize the experience of having suicidal thoughts. They give presentations to schools in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties, teaching kids to recognize warning signs in themselves and their peers. They maintain a 24-hour suicide crisis hotline that’s multilingual and confidential. They run peer-led grief support groups that meet twice a month in Santa Cruz and Pacific Grove.

The hotline receives an astounding 400-500 calls a month. “We’ve gotten calls from 8-year-olds to 88-year-olds. We’ve gotten a call from a teacher concerned about a 6-year-old student,” Marsh says. “We get calls from teachers and school administrators and even therapists looking for resources. There’s no specific demographic.”

So why does a subject that touches so many lives remain stigmatized? Some of that can be found in how suicide is discussed and even how it’s covered in the media. It’s one of the things I want Marsh to tell me: What can we be doing better to write about the subject with more sensitivity?

“It’s a scary topic. There’s still that myth that if you talk about it you give people the idea and make it come true, and that’s not true,” he says. But it’s also true that we’re living in anxiety-producing times, magnified by relentless messaging of social media and FOMO, or the fear of missing out. “You get sucked in and you’re not just dealing with your emotions, but everyone else’s emotions,” Marsh says.

Like a lot of high-anxiety issues, Marsh gently tells me, the media tends to sensationalize it. He points to coverage of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, about an isolated, bullied high-school girl who dies by suicide, as something that created shock value.

But the coverage—of 13 Reasons Why specifically, and of the topic in general—can also create opportunities to open dialogue. Calls to the hotline increased with coverage of the show, especially from teachers because students were talking about it.

But writing about suicide, Marsh says, can also be a no-win situation.

“It’s complicated. If you don’t cover it, people feel they’re being ignored, so it’s the dance of how you cover it,” he says. “Hopefully that’s with compassion and grace and thoughtfulness.”

The Coastal Trail Walk starts with registration at 9am Sat Sept. 16, at Window on the Bay, Monterey. $25/person, $15/children under 15, $20/person on a team of four or more. 459-9373, suicidepreventionservice.org.

Mary Duan writes The Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.