When we talk about someone having a “terminal illness,” we generally mean an incurable, progressive disease that will eventually end someone’s life. Advanced cancer, end-stage heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and many other diseases are widely accepted as terminal in modern medicine.
Most medical institutions don’t include mental illnesses in that category either, for understandable ethical reasons. But as actor Martin Short shares from firsthand experience, viewing treatment-resistant mental illness as “terminal” can help families process the loss of a loved one to suicide.
In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Short compared losing his 42-year-old daughter, Katherine, to suicide in 2026 with losing his wife, Nancy, to cancer in 2010.
“You know, it’s been a nightmare for the family,” Short said when asked what he wanted to share about Katherine’s death. “But the understanding that mental health and cancer, like my wife, are both diseases. And sometimes with diseases, they are terminal. And my daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and did the best she could until she couldn’t. So Nan’s last words to me were, ‘Martin, let me go.’ And she was just saying, ‘Dad, let me go.’”
Adding nuance to the “suicide is preventable” conversation
Short is speaking a hard truth that goes against the unequivocal messaging that suicide is preventable. As with so many human realities, conversations about mental health and suicide require nuance. Those who have seen a loved one through every available treatment, medication, therapy, and program, only to lose them to suicide after trying everything, play an important role in that conversation.
We understand that many deaths from cancer and heart disease are preventable, but not all are. While mental illness may not be directly comparable to those diseases, the reality is that some illnesses, both physical and mental, resist even the best and most effective treatments.
As Sophia Laurenzi shared in her Time essay, “The Problem With Saying Suicide Is Preventable,” the blanket message that suicide can be prevented places an unfair burden on individuals and families.
Acknowledging the complex reality of suicide prevention
“Though well-intentioned, the truth is that not all suicides can be stopped, even with the best efforts,” Laurenzi wrote. “But right after my father’s death, everywhere I looked I read that suicide is preventable. This instilled an immediate, unconscious conviction in me of a double failure: my father, who had not done enough to save himself, and those of us who loved him most, who had not done enough, either. Collectively we could have deterred his death. But we did not.”
This feeling of failure and guilt prompted Laurenzi to dive deeply into suicide education and advocacy. That deep dive led her to the conclusion that while suicide prevention efforts are important, so is acknowledging the complex reality that a 100% success rate on that front is not currently possible.
“The crux of the issue with blanketing suicide as something that can be stopped is that it flattens one of the most confounding psychological, medical, and philosophical questions of being human into something simpler than its reality,” she wrote. “Perhaps one day we will be able to say that, with the right blueprint, suicide is preventable. But we do not have the knowledge, let alone the resources, to make that true now.”
To be clear, acknowledging that suicide isn’t always preventable is not the same as saying suicide is inevitable. Most suicides are preventable, and people should absolutely exhaust all preventative measures and possibilities. Knowing typical warning signs, having access to mental health treatment, limiting access to firearms and other highly lethal methods, and following other best practices are vital to giving someone the best chance of surviving a suicidal mental illness.
Keeping hope in the balance
Acknowledging that mental illness can be “terminal” also doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t have hope. Many illnesses that used to be terminal diagnoses—HIV, cholera, and more—are now totally survivable thanks to advances in medicine. Just because some people’s mental illness resists all known treatments now doesn’t mean we won’t find more effective treatments in the future. Most mental illnesses, even many serious ones, are currently treatable.
But in some cases, for some people, having all the access in the world to resources, support, and treatment may not be enough. Just as doctors can exhaust all treatments for physical illnesses, people can also exhaust all treatments for mental illnesses. That doesn’t mean anyone should ever give up hope or stop trying. It means that families and friends who did everything they could, and who knew their loved one fought as long and hard as they were able to, can find peace in understanding that their loved one who died by suicide was dealing with a terminal, treatment-resistant illness that ultimately took their life.
Short shared that he’s gotten involved with Bring Change to Mind, an organization started by actress Glenn Close, which he said is “taking mental health out of the shadows.”
“Not being ashamed of it, not hiding from the word ‘suicide,’ but accepting that this can be the last stage of an illness,” said Short. “That’s my approach to this.”
Watch Short’s full interview:
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