Four Things You Can Do to #StopSuicide

As National Suicide Prevention Week comes to a close, I wanted to share a few words.I was once suicidal. I hated myself. I hated my life. I was blind to the love of people around me. I was virtually on the precipice, but stepped back at the last moment because of their love. They mattered to me, and I mattered to them. I remembered that at the moment it would do the most good. I survived that dark period, and other dark periods that followed. I survived, healed, and now I try to help other people as desperately miserable as I once was by opening up aboutdepression,ADHD, and suicide with my writing.In fact,I wrote a book to#StopSuicide, but helping people doesn ’t need to be that elaborate. Just listen and care when somebody is in crisis. Take the time to care. Don’t recoil from the subject. The fact somebody is opening up to you about such a difficult subject is an amazing blessing in your life. Don’t waste it.The other night I spoke with a gentleman whose boy committed suicide years ago. His pain survives that suicide years later. He felt his boy didn’t mean to do it. That it was an accident. People care. They agonize over these deaths. If you are convinced nobody cares, that’s the suicidal intentions lying to you. This father, like most survivors, was wracked with survivor’s guilt. I could see it in his eyes. It’s a look I’ve seen before.“What could I have done differently?!”, they usually ask themselves. Sometimes the...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Depression Suicide Source Type: blogs