World Suicide Prevention Month
On September 21, Lindsey Turnbull, owner and founder of MissHeard Media, hosted a tweet chat on Safecity’s twitter handle @pinthecreep about ‘Suicide Prevention’. The TweetChat focused on understanding the reasons for suicide and the ways to prevent them. The topic garnered a lot of caring respondents from the online community making the TweetChat session an interactive one.
The conversation began with defining suicide prevention to which many responded as it being any action or initiative that seeks to reduce the occurrences of suicides. It was stated that it was extremely important because the issue is universal and beyond any discrimination. The next question asked was about how suicide prevention looked like in different communities. The responses were diverse and were mostly about national organizations helping educate schools and workplaces about suicide preventions, especially in aiding them to eradicate the stigma attached to it and also offering toll-free helplines involving trained crisis workers available to talk confidentially for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The next question was about the groups prone to a higher risk of suicide to which many responded that it was mostly the teens and statistically, the middle-aged white men who are more prone to suicides. The chat proceeded with the question of how suicide prevention can be improved in their communities. The respondents replied that the stigma attached to mental illnesses be addressed and the youth should be given practical advice regarding the same. Also, awareness should be created in places of employment, community centres and faith-based organizations apart from schools and colleges. The next question was about what an individual could do to prevent suicide. The most prevailing answer was that individuals could educate themselves regarding the symptoms of mental illnesses and help out those in need by being a good friend and listen to them vent out, without any sort of judgment.
Lastly, the participants were requested to tag local suicide prevention resources. Organizations like Stamp Stigma, DeStress Monday, Afspnational, 800273TALK, Trevor Project and NAMI Communicate were tagged. The TweetChat ended with an aim to spread kindness and love and by doing so, reducing suicides by a great extent.
A TweetChat with Lindsey Turnbull!
https://wakelet.com/wake/47169440-4193-4710-ab1c-00dda1be8a35