To some, September tenth is known as World Suicide Prevention Day. In my experience, most people have never heard of this day. I think this needs to change. I know that not everybody in the world has been directly affected by suicide, especially not to the extent that I have been. However, the awareness of suicide is a vital step to preventing people from taking their own lives. This is the aim of World Suicide Prevention Day. It is important to me to inform more people about this day because I have had someone very near and dear to my heart who attempted suicide.
My mom had come home to tell me that Emma, my older cousin I had looked up to for all my life, had been cutting herself with knives on purpose. She was trying to kill herself, and she was not telling anybody about how she felt. I remember asking my mom why someone would do something like that. The only answer I got and the only one even possible was “Bullying. That’s why.” I remember her being even more protective over my brother and I for some time after that. We had dealt with bullying before, though not to the extent that Emma ever had.
It was not until I was much older that our family learned about why exactly Emma had started cutting herself in the first place. We found out it was because of some girls at her school that had found out she did not like boys and kept pestering her about it and making fun of her. It was because of those girls that almost every kid at Emma’s high school had found out. Kids can be extremely brutal sometimes and their constant nagging and bullying sent Emma into such a deep and dark depression. The only thing that made her feel better was cutting herself. Scary as it may be, this terrifying escape from reality is becoming much more widespread as bullying is getting worse in some schools despite anti-bullying efforts by school authorities.
Luckily for our family, Emma never succeeded in her attempt to take her own life. Her mother found out about how much she was cutting her self and eventually saw the scars. My Aunt was smart and immediately got the help that Emma so desperately needed but was too afraid to ask for. Looking back on the experience now, I believe she is happy to be alive. Seven years later, she is now helping kids struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors to see that they matter and that people love and care about them. She is not alone in her struggles, however, many people we all know and love have thought about suicide.
World Suicide Prevention Day is a day dedicated to honoring those who have been lost to suicide and to bring awareness about the horrifying facts about suicide. On average, 3,000 people commit suicide every single day in the United States alone. For each of those three thousand people taking their own lives, about twenty people attempt suicide in the US. That is, on average, 60,000 people attempting to commit suicide everyday. That is an astonishingly large number for one country. The worst part about it? Suicide is a one hundred percent preventable cause of premature death. If the proper help and treatment is given to any person who has ever thought about suicide, less people would actually try to do it!
On Suicide Prevention Day, supporters do a number of things to show their support for any one close to them and those they do not even know. One of these things is to write the word “love” on your wrists. In doing this, some people will ignore it and write it off as a tattoo, but some people will literally stop someone on the street to ask why they had written “love” on their wrists. I had this happen a few times when I participated this past year. The nice thing about the people who ask is that they have a chance to educate themselves about suicide prevention!
In the past several years, many non-profit groups have begun to support suicide prevention and education. One of these is the organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. This organization is a non-profit group that strives to assist any person struggling with addiction, depression, self-injury and suicide and they raise money so that proper treatment can be provided to those who need it. Another thing they strive to do is to raise awareness of depression, addiction, and self-injury; some of the leading causes of suicide.
With the help of organizations like To Write Love On Her Arms, suicide awareness is on the rise. Hopefully this progress will continue and one day we might have a world that is not plagued by suicide. I sincerely hope that stories like mine will help to eliminate the ignorance about these horrible truths. Suicide is one hundred percent preventable! If a close friend or family member notices that someone is particularly depressed and they seek out proper treatment for that person, suicide could be wiped off of the planet and out of our vocabulary.
My mom had come home to tell me that Emma, my older cousin I had looked up to for all my life, had been cutting herself with knives on purpose. She was trying to kill herself, and she was not telling anybody about how she felt. I remember asking my mom why someone would do something like that. The only answer I got and the only one even possible was “Bullying. That’s why.” I remember her being even more protective over my brother and I for some time after that. We had dealt with bullying before, though not to the extent that Emma ever had.
It was not until I was much older that our family learned about why exactly Emma had started cutting herself in the first place. We found out it was because of some girls at her school that had found out she did not like boys and kept pestering her about it and making fun of her. It was because of those girls that almost every kid at Emma’s high school had found out. Kids can be extremely brutal sometimes and their constant nagging and bullying sent Emma into such a deep and dark depression. The only thing that made her feel better was cutting herself. Scary as it may be, this terrifying escape from reality is becoming much more widespread as bullying is getting worse in some schools despite anti-bullying efforts by school authorities.
Luckily for our family, Emma never succeeded in her attempt to take her own life. Her mother found out about how much she was cutting her self and eventually saw the scars. My Aunt was smart and immediately got the help that Emma so desperately needed but was too afraid to ask for. Looking back on the experience now, I believe she is happy to be alive. Seven years later, she is now helping kids struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors to see that they matter and that people love and care about them. She is not alone in her struggles, however, many people we all know and love have thought about suicide.
World Suicide Prevention Day is a day dedicated to honoring those who have been lost to suicide and to bring awareness about the horrifying facts about suicide. On average, 3,000 people commit suicide every single day in the United States alone. For each of those three thousand people taking their own lives, about twenty people attempt suicide in the US. That is, on average, 60,000 people attempting to commit suicide everyday. That is an astonishingly large number for one country. The worst part about it? Suicide is a one hundred percent preventable cause of premature death. If the proper help and treatment is given to any person who has ever thought about suicide, less people would actually try to do it!
On Suicide Prevention Day, supporters do a number of things to show their support for any one close to them and those they do not even know. One of these things is to write the word “love” on your wrists. In doing this, some people will ignore it and write it off as a tattoo, but some people will literally stop someone on the street to ask why they had written “love” on their wrists. I had this happen a few times when I participated this past year. The nice thing about the people who ask is that they have a chance to educate themselves about suicide prevention!
In the past several years, many non-profit groups have begun to support suicide prevention and education. One of these is the organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. This organization is a non-profit group that strives to assist any person struggling with addiction, depression, self-injury and suicide and they raise money so that proper treatment can be provided to those who need it. Another thing they strive to do is to raise awareness of depression, addiction, and self-injury; some of the leading causes of suicide.
With the help of organizations like To Write Love On Her Arms, suicide awareness is on the rise. Hopefully this progress will continue and one day we might have a world that is not plagued by suicide. I sincerely hope that stories like mine will help to eliminate the ignorance about these horrible truths. Suicide is one hundred percent preventable! If a close friend or family member notices that someone is particularly depressed and they seek out proper treatment for that person, suicide could be wiped off of the planet and out of our vocabulary.
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