Hope should accompany suicide data

“Hope is real. Help is real. Your story is important.” — To Write Love on Her Arms

The increase of suicides nationwide has brought more attention to the well-known public health issue. With all that attention should also come prevention awareness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report this month showing a 24 percent rise in the U.S. suicide rate between 1999 and 2014.

The study says the age-adjusted suicide rate in 1999 was 10.5 people per 100,000. The rate rose to 13 people per 100,000 in 2014. That equates to about 42,000 people who took their own lives that year.

The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention responded to this report.

“For every one person who tragically dies by suicide in the U.S., there are approximately 278 people who have moved past serious thoughts about killing themselves, and nearly 60 who have survived a suicide attempt, the overwhelming majority of whom will go on to live out their lives,” the organization says in a news statement.

Suicide has always been a complex, misunderstood issue, but an increasing number of suicide prevention resources have become readily available to help anyone who is suffering with suicidal ideation or crisis.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is always available in English and Spanish, and there are chat and text services if someone doesn’t want to, or can’t, talk on the phone.

Facebook created a tool with which friends can flag a “troubling” post. Facebook will reach out and offer support. Twitter has something similar.

Reddit users can find support with a subreddit, SuicideWatch, where anonymous users can talk about suicide and people respond. The subreddit is heavily monitored and provides “nonjudgmental peer support only.”

Dozens of nonprofit organizations have suicide-prevention resources available, and even Googling “suicide” will produce the Lifeline’s number in big, bold type.

Help exists and people get it frequently, but it should be even more vocal. Survivor stories are some of the best suicide-prevention tools out there.

They bring hope and understanding, something media attention can’t always provide.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Hope should accompany suicide data."