Trigger warning: Mention of suicide. “I was raised in the wilds of western Wyoming and spent my childhood exploring the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, camping in Idaho and Montana, and visiting family in Colorado and New Mexico,” writes Brandon Kapelow. “It was a beautiful but difficult place to grow up. Apart from Alaska, these are the states that continually rank highest for deaths by suicide, earning the ominous designation ‘the Suicide Belt.’" “I’ve come to realize how widespread this issue is for thousands of people living in small communities across the West, like the one where I grew up." “Many of these Americans are struggling to process the complexities of grief that come with living through a generation or more of suicide loss, yearning for support and connection while surrounded by a culture that is rarely willing to offer or accept it." “I decided to travel to Catron County, a high-desert region with the highest rate of suicide death of any county in the contiguous U.S. from 2010 to 2020. I wanted to meet people who were living at the heart of this issue—to hear their stories and provide a window into their grief, as it mirrored my own.” Read the story at the link in our bio. Photographs by Brandon Kapelow (@bkapelow)