Suicide;
What do you think of when you hear the word suicide? Maybe you think of someone in a movie who killed themselves, or maybe you think of a friend who has attempted or committed suicide.
Either way, chances are you know someone who has thought about committing suicide or attempted it. Because just in Florida alone, in the year of 2010 there has been 2,753 suicide deaths. That’s 7.5 per day, that’s only completed suicide, there are no proven statistics for people who have attempted suicide. But logically, it would be much higher than the completed suicides. The average age for those who commit suicide are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, although they can range between the ages of 10 and 85. Not saying that there aren’t people younger than that or older than that who do it.
In some groups, self harm can be a trend. That can range anywhere from cutting yourself, burning yourself, or starving yourself. All of which are things that you are able to prevent as a friend, parent, and sibling. People usually self harm because they’re highly upset about something or they could even be clinically depressed. Clinical depression is just a severe case of depression. It’s very possible to feel depressed but you may not be medically or clinically depressed.
Some symptoms of being depressed are possibly having difficulty concentrating or making even the smallest decisions, feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or feeling helpless, or a loss of interest in things one used to enjoy.
Many times, suicidal people have this odd obsession with death, they talk about it often, and they find different ways of dying. Some people are interested in death but there’s a difference between being obsessed and being interested.
Another way to tell if someone is suicidal is they may talk about how worthless they feel they are, and how they think no one would care. Some people say “no one would care if I died” that’s when you know it’s time to step it and try to help them out.
Many people can help out, but whom? Parents can help, friends, teachers, or guidance counselor.
What can you do to help out? Just show the person you care before it’s too late, before they have something set in their mind. It can be hard to make a close relationship with someone and then they’re just gone. Most suicidal people feel as if the only way out is death because they feel that no one’s there for them and they can’t get through what’s making them feel this way.
You can try opening up to the person to see if it makes them feel more comfortable around you and maybe they’ll open up to you. It’s best to try anything you can, if it means saving a person’s life. People don’t really realize how important their life is, or how important they are to other people. People usually want to commit suicide because they want to escape a tough part of their life, but they need to realize that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Putting any kind of positive thoughts in their head can be a big help.
Although, if there is no way of stopping it, there are ways to cope with suicide, of course, for the first couple of days it’s going to feel terrible and it will feel like nothing can help you. But there are some things you can do, first, you must face the loss, realize what has happened. It’s not good to drink or do drugs to cope with your loss.
Next step is to share your feelings with others, let everything out. Sometimes if you hold things in, and bottle them up inside, one day, everything will just come out and it won’t be pretty.
Third thing to do would be to ignore all the people saying negative things such as “Get over it” or other hurtful things like that.
Then after that, you can distract yourself or if you still want to think about the person, think of the happy things that have happened with them, not how much it hurts that they aren’t here with you.
You can also save things that remind you of the person you have lost. Even if it’s the smallest thing, it can hold you over, and make you smile when you need it.
Lastly, you need to allow yourself time to heal. You can’t get over mourning a death in a few days, sometimes it can take a few weeks, maybe even months.
So now, what comes to your head when you think of the word suicide? Escape? Depression? Or someone silently reaching out for help?
caseyrobbie