Save lives, ask
WE need to talk.
I don’t mean exchanging pleasantries or chatting about weather.
When asked, “How are you”, the word “good” usually slips out. This response can hide the heartache we might be experiencing, the anxiety we’re battling with or the overwhelming stress we lumber around. Too many of us paint on a happy face, suck it up and continue to soldier on, ignoring the reality.
Perhaps a question we need to ask when we are concerned is, “Are you thinking about suicide”.
Facing the reality of suicidal thoughts head-on could be how to break taboos and create real change.
Sunday is World Suicide Prevention Day. This international event provides an opportunity to learn more about suicide research, support those left behind after suicide and reach out to people we are concerned about.
With 3027 Australian lives lost to suicide in 2015, according to the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics report, few are untouched by the trauma of suicide. The loss of one individual by ripple effect impacts hundreds of others.
Despite our community’s increasing awareness of mental health challenges and governments committing funding to care for people struggling with mental health issues, suicide still accounts for one third of deaths among people aged 15-24.
Lifeline research director Alan Woodward told the National Stop Suicide Summit in May that the loss of so many Australians through suicide was a national emergency.
We struggle with how to address suicide, giving it euphemisms and speaking awkwardly around it. The lack of communication adds to misunderstandings and perpetuates myths.
The falsehood that “all suicidal people want to die” has been dispelled by researchers after speaking to people who had made serious attempts to take their own life. The common thread seems to be a yearning for change and a need for difference, over wanting death. There is a popular belief that only disconnected people with mental illness attempt suicide. Research has shown that is not correct. Many who lose their lives to suicide have never sought professional help, have a devoted network of family and friends, and may never have had a diagnosed mental illness.
This was certainly the case for Geelong’s Melinda Hopper, pictured, who lost her sister to suicide. Nine years ago Alisha Kosic was a popular 27-year-old who supported others battling mental health in her role as psychiatric nurse in Geelong’s Swanston Centre. She had an adoring family and was surrounded by a network of people who knew the signs of someone who may be suicidal. Alisha had no known mental illness, nor had she made previous attempts before she took her life, leaving Melinda and those who loved her wondering why. “We talk a lot about the treatment for people who attempt suicide, but there’s a whole lot of people who attempt or even complete suicide who don’t have a known mental illness, like my sister,” Melinda said. According to a research paper released by Deakin and Melbourne University, health professionals are at a higher risk of suicidal ideation and death by suicide. The research paper, published last year by Allison Milner, found female nurses had a suicide risk of almost four times greater than women in other professions. For male nurses, it was almost double the rate of other occupations.
Many health professionals are fearful of disclosing their own mental health concerns in the workplace, in case they are viewed as incompetent, unprofessional or unreliable.
“Reaching out to others when we really do need support is something I think we are still a long, long way away from yet, because of the stigma, the embarrassment, the need to maintain that professional, reliable, dependable standing,” Melinda said.
“We are not good at dropping the act and being real with others about the way we feel.”
Melinda has used her lived experience of suicide bereavement to empower others whose lives have been touched in the same way.
As the community development co-ordinator for Support After Suicide, Geelong region, she aims to provide valued support and assist suicide bereaved individuals find the valuable support she wished she and her family had when they lost Alisha.
Support After Suicide Geelong Region is part of Hope Bereavement. For more details contact 4215 3358, visit bereavement.org.au or email aftersuicide@bereave ment.org.au