By: Shanavier Clark, LCSW
September is Suicide Prevention Month, a time to increase awareness, reduce stigma, and remind ourselves that suicide prevention is not limited to responding when someone is already in crisis.
Prevention begins much earlier with education, awareness, connection, and conversation.
One of the most important things we can do is learn how to recognize when someone may be struggling, even when they don’t directly tell us.
Here are 5 signs & misconceptions to educate yourself this month:
1. Warning Signs
It doesn’t always sound like “I’m Suicidal.” People experiencing suicidal thoughts may communicate their distress in many different ways. We may hear statements such as:
“I’m tired of everything.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Everybody would be better off without me.”
“Nothing is ever going to get better.”
“I just want everything to stop.”
These statements do not automatically mean someone is suicidal, but they should not be ignored. They are opportunities to listen, ask questions, and connect.
Warning signs may also include increased isolation, hopelessness, significant changes in mood or behavior, increased substance use, talking about feeling trapped or being a burden, giving away important possessions, saying goodbye, or talking about or researching ways to die.
2. Myth: Asking About Suicide Will Put The Idea Into Their Mind
One common misconception is that asking someone about suicide will put the idea into their mind. It doesn’t.
Asking directly, “Are you thinking about suicide?” can give someone permission to talk openly about what they are experiencing.
We also shouldn’t assume that someone who appears successful, happy, productive, or surrounded by others cannot be struggling. Emotional distress does not always look the way we expect it to look.
That is why education matters.
3. Myth: Prevention is One Conversation
Suicide prevention isn’t one conversation, one screening, or one month of awareness.
Prevention can look like checking on someone when their behavior changes, taking concerning statements seriously, asking direct questions, helping someone connect with behavioral health services, encouraging treatment, supporting safety planning, reducing access to lethal means during periods of increased risk, and following up after a crisis.
For healthcare providers, prevention also means creating an environment where patients understand that talking about their mental health is part of talking about their overall health.
A routine medical visit may be the only opportunity someone has to tell another person:
“I’m not okay.”
We have to be willing to hear it.
4. Myth: I Can’t Do Anything to Make a Difference
We all have a role in prevention. You do not have to be a behavioral health professional to make a difference.
Learn the warning signs. Ask the question. Listen without judgment. Take the answer seriously. Connect the person with help.
And perhaps most importantly, don’t wait until someone uses the word suicide before deciding that their distress deserves attention.
Sometimes prevention begins simply because someone noticed. Someone listened. Someone asked.
5. Myth: Help is Far Away
Hope starts with a conversation. During Suicide Prevention Month, we encourage everyone (providers, staff, patients, families, schools, and community members) to become more educated about suicide prevention and more comfortable having conversations about mental health.
Our goal isn’t to make everyone a mental health professional.
Our goal is to help everyone recognize when it may be time to reach out to one.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or emotional distress, call, text, or chat 988 to connect with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If there is an immediate life-threatening emergency, call 911 or seek emergency medical care.
Because sometimes suicide prevention begins with a screening tool.
And sometimes it begins because somebody actually heard what the patient was trying to say.
Listen. Ask. Connect.
Help is closer than you think!
To learn more about counseling services with Coastal Family Health or to schedule a therapy appointment, call (228) 864-0003 and ask to speak with the Behavioral Health Patient Navigator.