World Suicide Prevention Day

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and I thought this would be a good post back for me. I wanted to not only spread the word about today, but I also thought I might write a little on the topic. The World Health Organization says the following:

At the global level, awareness needs to be raised that suicide is a major preventable cause of premature death. Governments need to develop policy frameworks for national suicide prevention strategies. At the local level, policy statements and research outcomes need to be translated into prevention programmes and activities in communities. (source)

Suicide has been a subject them many have shied away from talking about. While I agree that it is certainly a difficult and emotion-filled topic, I think that not discussing the topic only leads us to not preventing and dealing with it in healthy ways.

About 1 million people die globally each year from suicide (one every 40 seconds!)- these are deaths that are preventable! Most of us either know someone who has died this way, or at least know someone who knew someone who did. We are each touched by it in some way, and it's important for us to learn how to identify those who might be at risk, learn warning signs, etc...
Throughout the next few posts I thought that I might address some of these issues regarding suicide.

To start with, here are a few links that give more information about this prevention day:

Suicide Prevention Stats
Bipolar Burble: How To Support World Suicide Prevention Day - This link includes some more statistics and interesting information, as well as a few action steps on how to support the day.
International Association for Suicide Prevention : This site contains a great wealth of information. Take some time and read through some of the PDFs on this site!

If you have any questions you'd like answered, feel free to leave them for me and I'll see if I can answer them for you!

**Please contact a mental health professional if you are having thoughts of harming yourself or another person, are unable to care for yourself or those you are responsible for, are abusing substances, or feeling as though you need help or support in your life. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or having a medical emergency, please call 911 immediately.