Words can be used to push someone toward suicide, and in Utah, that abuse is still not clearly illegal. Survivors are blamed for their reactions while those who weaponize psychological harm face little accountability. This petition demands that Utah criminalize suicide coercion, coercive control, and reactive abuse, before more lives are lost.

I know what it feels like to be pushed toward suicide through sustained psychological abuse, manipulation, and coercion. A year and a half ago, I woke up in the ICU after months of being repeatedly told, along with my children, that I would be better off dead. Those words were not said in a moment of anger. They were part of a deliberate pattern meant to destabilize my mental health until I broke. I survived. Many others do not.

What nearly killed me was not weakness or personal failure. It was coercive control and suicide coercion, forms of psychological abuse well recognized in trauma science, but still not clearly criminalized in Utah law. When I sought help, there were no meaningful legal tools for intervention. Not because the harm wasn’t real, but because the law does not yet name it.

Surviving did not bring safety. For more than a year after that ICU hospitalization, the psychological abuse continued. Even with full knowledge of the harm and risk, the same individuals and added individuals persisted in conduct designed to destabilize me, discredit me, and provoke emotional reactions that could later be used against me. Survival only changed the tactics, it did not stop the abuse.

Over the past year and a half, I have endured continued psychological harassment, gaslighting, false narratives, intimidation, and interference in my personal and parental stability. Each incident alone could be dismissed as “conflict” or “civil.” Together, they formed a sustained pattern of coercive control that placed my mental health and safety at ongoing risk, one Utah law does not adequately address.

Much of this relied on reactive abuse. Reactive abuse occurs when a victim, after prolonged psychological torment, finally reacts emotionally or verbally, and that reaction is then weaponized to shift blame and destroy credibility. Trauma experts recognize reactive abuse as a survival response, not mutual wrongdoing. Utah law does not. This legal blind spot allows abusers to provoke reactions and hide behind them while the original abuse remains invisible.

Despite documentation, clear patterns, and known risk to my life, meaningful intervention never occurred. Law enforcement responses were limited, not because the behavior wasn’t dangerous, but because Utah lacks clear statutes criminalizing suicide coercion, coercive control, and psychologically driven abuse that escalates toward self-harm. Survivors are left unprotected until crisis becomes catastrophic, or fatal.

This is not just a mental health issue. It is a public safety issue. Research consistently shows that psychological abuse and coercive control significantly increase suicide risk. When individuals intentionally or recklessly use words, manipulation, and sustained psychological pressure to endanger another person’s life, that conduct must be treated with the same seriousness as physical violence.

Utah must enact legislation that criminalizes suicide coercion, legally recognizes coercive control, and explicitly acknowledges reactive abuse as a trauma response, not a primary offense. The law must allow patterns of behavior, survivor testimony, expert psychological evaluation, and documented evidence to establish intent and harm.

Words do not become harmless because someone survived them once. Reactive abuse does not negate victimization. And silence in the law does not mean the harm isn’t real.

Words can kill. Silence allows it.

Sign this petition to urge Utah lawmakers to criminalize suicide coercion, coercive control, and reactive abuse, so lives are protected before another ICU stay or a funeral.