Dese'Rae L. Stage

In 2019, Congresswoman Susan Wild (PA) invited Stage to take part in a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill called "The Rippling Impact of Suicide", alongside Congresswoman Wild, former NFL player Fred Stokes, and representatives from the suicidology and psychiatry fields. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi provided opening remarks and Mike Schlossberg (PA House of Representatives) moderated the discussion.

Dese'Rae appears as the main character in Lisa Klein's 2017 documentary, The S Word. She also appears in Nate Townsend's 2020 documentary, Wake Up: Stories from the Frontlines of Suicide Prevention.

Live Through This is a series of portraits and true stories of suicide attempt survivors across the United States. Stage launched the project in 2010, and began interviewing attempt survivors and making portraits in 2011. The inspiration for Live Through This came out of the silence surrounding the experience of suicide attempts. Stage said, "In the years after my most recent attempt in 2006, it felt like I was alone in what I'd been through. I didn't know anyone else who was open about having attempted suicide and lived; all I could find online were statistics, and a handful of anonymous stories wrapped with happy endings like neat little bows. They lacked the warmth of human idiosyncrasy. I couldn't connect." Live Through This gives suicide attempt survivors a platform to talk openly about their experiences with suicidal thoughts and actions. The narratives, which are transcribed and edited for readability, are accompanied by portraits and the survivors' full names. Survivors who have shared their stories represent a broad age range (19 to 69); a variety of socioeconomic, professional, and faith backgrounds; a breadth of trauma and mental health experiences; as well as folks from Black, brown, Latinx, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ communities. Stage has interviewed and photographed nearly 200 suicide attempt survivors across the country.

Stage survived two suicide attempts: one as a teenager, and one in 2006, at the end of an abusive relationship with a partner. She lost friends to suicide and witnessed the aftermath of a suicide death. These experiences propelled her to begin work on Live Through This in 2010.