10 September is World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) and this year’s theme is ‘Preventing Suicide: Reaching Out and Saving Lives’. The aim of this international day is to increase awareness of the public health significance of suicide and suicide attempts.
Suicidal thoughts are far more common than people realise but we just don’t talk about them due to the stigma surrounding suicide.
Over 800,000 people die by suicide across the world each year according a report released by World Health Organization (WHO). The Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative report states that “Every 40 seconds a person dies by suicide somewhere in the world.”
The report encourages countries to place suicide prevention high on the agenda, regardless of where a country stands currently in terms of suicide rate or suicide prevention activities.
This year To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA), the charity supported by Supernatural star Jared Padalecki is using the theme “We’ll See You Tomorrow” to raise awareness of WSPD and National Suicide Prevention Week (September 7-13) in America.
Image from TWLOHA
The campaign is backed by the touching words:
“Above all else, we choose to stay. We choose to fight the darkness and the sadness, to fight the questions and the lies and the myth of all that’s missing. We choose to stay, because we are stories still going. Because there is still some time for things to turn around, time for surprises and for change. We stay because no one else can play our part.
Life is worth living.
We’ll see you tomorrow.”
These words resonate with me as someone who has contemplated suicide a few times in the past as a result of chronic depression. Regardless of the negative thoughts that I have had, I’m still here because, despite what the black dog says, life is worth living and no one else can play my part.
You can support the “We’ll See You Tomorrow” campaign by buying a World Suicide Prevention Day pack.
Here in the UK a report by HM Government entitled Preventing suicide in England: Two years on, shows an increase in suicide rates since 2008.
If you have or are thinking about suicide remember, you are not alone. Don’t keep these suicidal feelings to yourself, share them with someone you trust and always keep fighting.
It’s good to talk
[…] Did you know that the #2 cause of death for those between 10-24 is suicide? In the rush of our busy lives, we may not always catch the warning signs, so please, please take the time to read this and more importantly – PASS IT ON!! We need our kids to know that we will see them tomorrow. […]