September is Suicide Prevention Month. Sadly, it lands just one short month after the world lost one of our most beloved entertainers, Robin Williams. Suicide prevention is about education, about encouraging each other to be involved and to ask questions, and mostly suicide prevention is about offering hope.
On that note, one of the most helpful websites that I have found is: http://metanoia.org/. Specifically, the page “If you are thinking about suicide… read this first” http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/.
From this website: “Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.”
Our goal then for suicide prevention is to reduce pain and increase the resources available for handling pain. This may sound like simple formula, yet it has multi-faceted features. That means we all can contribute to suicide prevention. I hope that as you are reading this you are making a commitment to take at least one action toward spreading hope and reducing the likelihood that someone else may decide that suicide is the only answer. One step we can all take is to post the Metanoia website or any other that you have found helpful on your Facebook page, Instagram, twitter feed or any other social media that you use. It might just land on someone’s device right when they need it.
Sometimes the question of prevention is asked in hindsight. Many that have suffered the loss of a loved one to suicide often ask the question “What could I have done to prevent this?” Only to find that trying to answer that question seems to increase distress rather than quell the sting of the loss. If only we were mind readers, but sadly we are not. If you are a survivor of a loved one that has taken their own life, while the world is educating itself on prevention, I encourage you to connect with your loved ones, to use good self-care, and to involve yourself in the parts of your life that offer you joy, peace and hope. While a website will not be a sufficient resource, this one has some information that you might find useful: http://www.survivorsofsuicide.com/resource_links.shtml.
Take good care.