Note: This article includes an explicit discussion of suicide and mental health issues.
In the last 20 years, the words we use to talk about suicide have changed. We are chastised for saying that someone “committed suicide,” because in years past such a phrasing implied that someone was committing a sin or a crime. Instead, we are supposed to use the more passive phrase that someone “died by suicide.”
In fact, according to one psychologist featured on the Suicide Prevention Alliance website: “The litmus test for talking about suicide is to substitute the word ‘cancer’ for the word ‘suicide’ to see if the sentence still makes sense or if it has a negative connotation. We wouldn’t say ‘committed cancer.’”
This evolution in language is a reflection of a much-needed shift in how we, as a society, talk about mental health overall. By destigmatizing mental health support, more people talk about and seek out treatment for mental health issues. That’s a good thing.
R.L. Stollar
However, I think it’s worth asking whether our passive language around suicide does more harm than good.
By saying suicide is not a choice, are we inviting individuals to see it as the inevitable outcome of their own lives? Are we masking the cruel violence that suicide inflicts on those left behind? When does suicide become the ultimate act of manipulation by an abuser?
I never heard of Ryan (R.L.) Stollar until Baptist News Global broke the news of his death this week. Just before our story went live, my editor sent me a link to Stollar’s website where he published a final message titled “The End.” What I read shook me. “I have been planning for this moment and working on this note for several years now.”
And that’s how his note reads. A calculated piece of writing massaged for years to inflict maximum emotional violence.
The picture he chose to accompany his note is one with his wife. He’s manipulated the photo to erase her image.
The words he chose to open his note with are from the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt.
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
“Stollar used this final written act to eviscerate his wife.”
Stollar used this final written act to eviscerate his wife, Scarlettah, publicly for their impending divorce (while noting she’d asked him not to write it). He lashed out at his parents whom he says didn’t believe his childhood abuse. He lashed out at his younger brother, Chris, whom he accuses of breaking his word and not valuing Stollar’s time.
In a final act of vengeance, Stollar closed the note with: “This is how it is. Scarlettah made her choices, my parents made their choices, my country made its choices, and so I must make my own choice, too. This is what I choose.”
And then he clicked “send.”
Stollar’s public suicide note was emailed to all his subscribers — most of whom are either themselves survivors of childhood trauma or individuals who work with abuse survivors.
In the days since its publication, a conversation has emerged online about what his final public act — the message and its deliver — says about him and his legacy. At the same time, previous allegations of embezzlement (and Stollar’s own partial admission to them) have resurfaced. Nicholas Ducote, who co-founded Homeschoolers Anonymous with Stollar, published a long thread about what went on behind the scenes in 2017.
I think it vital we take Stollar at his word: He planned this.
He spent years working on this note, carefully choosing each word for maximum effect. This was the final, calculated act by a wounded narcissist for his audience, and it was intended to destroy those whom he blames for wronging him.
“He spent years working on this note, carefully choosing each word for maximum effect.”
I’m sure it’s no coincidence that most of the individuals calling out the rage and narcissism on display in his note are women. More often than not, it’s women who are trapped in abusive relationships by men who use tactics of manipulation like threats of violence and suicide. I would encourage those defending him and suggesting his legacy — primarily (although not all) men — to pause and listen to what is being said about his note.
- RL Stoller’s 2nd to last act on this planet was an act of abuse. A vile act of abuse. Before yesterday I had no idea who the man was. Today I know he was an abuser that fooled the world, who used his last moments to punish his soon to be former wife, who had managed to escape him. You will never convince me that she had not endured years of abuse from him. — @kodadabest
- I’m just relieved he didn’t take his whole family with him. That letter was terrifying and screamed family annihilator. I can’t imagine the abuse she endured for years. I’m quite disappointed in the deconstruction community and their response to his death. That note destroys his whole legacy and puts a shadow on all of his work. We expect the church to hold abusers accountable but they want compassion for this man? — @allizeldalizzie
- It showed a man who could speak to abuse and healing but had actually done no healing at all. It’s scarily common I think. — @clevercovertfarm
- It has been very difficult to read the internet’s peanut gallery of opinions. I read the letter in a different way because I knew Ryan through ex-homeschooler trauma groups. I know the letter was foul. I understand why people read it with a different perspective. I also see that people don’t understand the complexities of the situation and feel the need to punch the guy who punished himself. I just wish people would let him die like he wanted and let his ex quietly grieve. — @mat_neh_voy
- There’s a lot of armchair therapists who are making really cruel accusations about a man who wrote a letter at the depths of his despair. It’s not helpful whatsoever. I am Julie Anne who was mentioned in his last post. — @thechoirmom
- As a formerly suicidal person myself he did harm. Intentional harm. We have a right to read what he wrote and having our own thoughts accordingly. Maybe others can see this reaction and learn from it.— @connieinfayetteville
- My empathy and nuance absolutely hold space for his whole self, in my perspective of this situation. Perhaps where I disagree (and it is a controversial topic, to be sure) is that I don’t consider all forms/rationale of someone ending their life to automatically be “not in their right mind.” So when he emphasizes how grounded his choice is, how thought out it is, then still chooses to write this letter *and* post it online, I deem it all to be vile. Not the person necessarily, but the choices. — @katelyn.e.l.i.z.a.b.e.t.h
- So, I had zero knowledge of Ryan Stollar until he clocked out of life by his own hand and left a public letter on his blog, so I went to read it. I expected to feel compassion for a man who’d spent his life advocating for victims of religious abuse. Yeah, no. Not at all what I felt. … He was a public figure with a large audience of (religious?) abuse survivors. His suicide note names his wife, discloses their divorce (that she’d asked him to keep private!), and then repeatedly connects his death to HER decision to leave. He didn’t just write a private letter to family and friends. He chose to publish it on his blog knowing it would be read by thousands of his followers, and it’s gone viral, making it even more damaging to his wife. … He knowingly left an incredibly dangerous message for a vulnerable audience.— @madlymaudlin
So what are we to do with Ryan Stollar’s death?
I generally believe none of us are the worst thing we’ve ever done. We’re also not the best thing we’ve done.
Each of us lead complex, nuanced lives. Some days we’re heroes. Some days we’re villains.
Ultimately, as a Christian, I believe we’ll be called to account for what we do in this realm — good and bad. Ryan Stollar inspired some people to speak out about the abusive religious networks that raised them. That is good. That is certainly part of his legacy.
And yet, I hope his cruel, calculated final message is not quickly forgotten. I hope this part of his legacy isn’t swept under the rug. I hope it inspires renewed conversation around suicide and how we talk about it.
Suicide is not the inevitable end to a painful life. Framing it as such causes its own kind of harm.
Sometimes people choose suicide, not out of grief and pain, but out of rage and vengeance — not as an act of escape, but as an act of violence. That is, surely, a sin.
Mara Richards Bim
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.
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