Prevent Sucide Now

Prevent Suicide Now

A website called Prevent Suicide Now.Com recently came to my
attention by chance. I almost sent it back into cyber obscurity
with a mouse click as it seemed unlikely to be of any interest
or use to me in my carefree home business programme.

My first thought was that a website dedicated to suicide must be
macabre. However, a tour of the website revealed that a great
deal of loving work had gone into its creation. The site’s
purpose is to prevent suicide and raise public awareness of the
subject. In America alone over 31,000 lives ended in 2002 as a
result of suicide. That is one suicide every sixteen and a half
minutes. Trends show the suicide rate to be increasing. 

There is a touching remembrance section on the site. The first
memorial on the "wall of angels" is to a little girl aged 13 who
was driven to suicide by school bullies. I could hardly bear to
look at the photographs of the other beautiful, bright children
who became "angels" in their teenage years. In the year 2002 in
America a total of 4,010 people below the age of 24 committed
suicide. That equates to 11 young lives destroyed each day.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death in the 15-24 age
group. 

Suicide is a subject which most of us would wish to avoid. We
would rather not think about it, let alone discuss it. We are
uncomfortable when dealing with people who have been bereaved
through suicide and feel helpless when somebody we know is
tormented by suicidal thoughts. 

Our reluctance to contemplate the issue of suicide is
understandable. It is painful and we don’t want to be reminded
of our own mortality, but we would be better equipped to deal
with the issue if we were brave enough to face suicide and
become familiar with its features. The ability to recognise the
enemy would give us a better chance of knowing when help should
be sought.

Seeing the photographs of the young suicide victims reminded me
of two young women I used to know but had not thought of for
some time. I was friends with both these women but they never
met each other. Their lives, however, strangely paralleled each
other for a while when they reached the age of 25.

My friend Janet had been engaged for two years and was looking
forward to a traditional white wedding. The wedding dress and
cake had been made and the big day was only two weeks in the
future when her fiancé abruptly broke off the engagement. She
was quietly devastated. Janet was a warm person with a wonderful
sense of humour but she was not a pretty girl – not ugly – just
not a head turner and she was rather shy. Being jilted shattered
her self-confidence and she suffered through several lonely
years before finding another boyfriend. He treated her abysmally
but she felt that it was better to put up with his behaviour
than to face the loneliness of being single. By then Janet was
approaching the dreaded 30th birthday and felt like everybody
else in the world was married. I was relieved when she finally
found the courage to end that relationship.

My other friend was Cathy. Like Janet, she was jilted only a
couple of weeks before her wedding was due to take place; with
impeccable timing her fiancé chose to dump her on the very day
her wedding dress was delivered. Cathy was a charming, sweet
girl but, unlike Janet, she was also extremely pretty and
outgoing. Cathy had many friends and, with her good looks and
bubbly character, was very attractive to men. She bounced back
from the rejection and had a new suitor within a matter of
months. I thought her new boyfriend was much nicer in every way
than the former fiancé and that the jilting had been a blessing
in disguise.

The last time I spoke to Janet she was blissfully happy. She had
met and married a lovely man and was living by the coast with
him and their two gorgeous children. Cathy never married; she
hanged herself at the age of 26. We were all utterly shocked: we
had not realised that Cathy was hiding deep depression behind
her pretty smile.

Could I or any of Cathy’s friends have saved her if they had
known the symptoms of depression? We will never know but 80% of
people who seek treatment for depression are treated
successfully. Could you help to save a life? Could you comfort
someone who has been bereaved through suicide? Advice and
details of resources are available free from:
http://www.preventsuicidenow.com . If you have a website of your
own, please offer a link exchange to this not-for-profit site
and help to raise its profile. It will cost you nothing but a
little of your time. 

This is one of a series of articles published by the author,
Elaine Currie, BA(Hons) at http://www.Hunting Venus.com The
author’s monthly newsletter is available free from
mailto:networkerhvm@ReportsNetwork.com