Actor reaches out to youth with his own story

Suicide Prevention coordinator Telly James uses his past to educate community members about the risks and signs of suicide.

“I suffered with suicidal thoughts from when I was 17 until… to be honest…I’m being extremely real… up until now,” he said.

James tells his story for two reasons. First, it helps him come to peace with his life.

Secondly, James believes troubled youth spend too much time thinking they are alone in their experience of pain. 

The Aboriginal suicide rate is three times that of the general Canadian population. First Nations youth living on reserve are five to six times more likely to commit suicide than general Canadian youth.

James could’ve been one of those statistics.

One night James’ mother sat him down and told him something that changed his life. He had gotten into trouble the night before.

“She threw a pack of smokes at me and said, ‘Here, you’re going to need these.’ I was like, ‘For-real?! A pack of smokes? I ought to piss my mom off more often.’”

But this time James’ mom was more than angry.

“I knew what she was leading up to, I just wanted to hear her say it, but I (could) already feel myself coming apart inside,” said James.

James, 17, learned the man who had raised him and that he called “Dad,” was not his biological father.

“Almost like those cartoons, when someone gets punched in the teeth and they shatter slowly piece by piece? That was my heart,” he said. 

James lost his sense of identity. He went down a dark spiral of suicidal thoughts. He lost the motivation to live, he says, and resorted to partying and alcohol to fill that void.

Now James harnesses his questions of identity and loss to help others. He knows what it’s like to be in that pain and to feel that hopelessness.

He can laugh at his past now, but adolescent mischief, loss of identity and a rough relationship with his parents left him vulnerable for suicidal behaviour and thoughts.

Today, James is 37 and a father of two girls. He is also a successful stage actor with appearances in the critically acclaimed APTN-TV series Blackstone and CityTV’s Young Drunk Punk. He is a prominent figure in his First Nation community through his work at Siksika Health Services as the Suicide Prevention coordinator.

“We have to share our stories so we can find the humanity in one another,” he said.

He stresses that he places no blame on his parents. Both had gone through Indian residential schools, his father attending St. Mary’s Residential School on the Blood reserve, and his mother the Old Sun Residential School on Siksika Nation.

He understands both were just “trying to keep sane” while raising a family. “They gave me all they got, even if it wasn’t much.”

It’s been a long, hard journey for James, and he thanks his parents for teaching him the important lesson of not judging people by a single action: “We have to show our parents a little more grace, and not expect that we had to have that cookie cutter childhood.”

Photo Caption: Telly James trains community members to recognize suicide risks, and intervention skills inside youth.