SUICIDE: A national Epidemic

The statistics are staggering.

The reality is in the words and reality pictured above.

Keeping it Real, and it is real and happens more than anyone wants to deal with, to hear about, to contemplate and to think could happen in their lives, to their family member, friend, community.

Our kids, our teenagers, adults, Elders,

Our soldiers are completing suicides in numbers greater than those who are dying in active combat.

The horrors of deployments, the cries going unheard, the need for help not being seen or recognized in time.

The latest data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that 38,364 suicide deaths were reported in the U.S. in 2010. This latest rise places suicide again as the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. Nationally, the suicide rate increased 3.9 percent over 2009 to equal approximately 12.4 suicides per 100,000 people. The rate of suicide has been increasing since 2000. This is the highest rate of suicide in 15 years.

We have an epidemic and yet access to services continue to be cut or are non-existent to many.

Native American youth are at more risk than any other population for completed suicides in this country.

Hopelessness and helplessness outweigh love and a guiding hand to see someone through the darkness.

The Centers for Disease Control have statistics, yet many statistics never get to them. Families are filled with unresolved grief; trauma takes the place of love around tables in the kitchen as people attempt to make sense of what they cannot fathom nor understand.

Forgiveness becomes a word that is beyond comprehension; anger becomes a coal that burns the soul, and remorse fills the room and smells of kerosene at times.

Often preventable, often much too often done in haste when no way out can be seen for the one in such darkness, no light visible, or the brain altered by substances and alcohol or traumas witnessed in fields of destruction.

Re-entry to civilization after being in wars, or still in war on ground that is unfamiliar and seeing no way out, life ends in a second with no one there to stop it.

SUICIDE

happening so quickly, leaving so many to try and pick up the pieces of worlds shattered in an instant; a person not loving themselves nor feeling they can see any light at the end of a tunnel.

...

The reality,

• Every 13.7 minutes someone in the United States dies by suicide.


• Nearly 1,000,000 people make a suicide attempt every year.


• 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable and treatable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.


• Most people with mental illness do not die by suicide.


• Recent data puts yearly medical costs for suicide at nearly $100 million (2005).


• Men are nearly 4 times more likely to die by suicide than women. Women attempt suicide 3 times as often as men.
• Suicide rates are highest for people between the ages of 40 and 59.


• Native American peoples are most likely to die by suicide, followed by white individuals .
• In active duty Military this past year there have been 154 suicides, which account for approximately one suicide per day, outpacing the number of deaths seen in combat...
•  
• Suicides are eclipsing war deaths by our soldiers
• The US Army has reported 211 potential suicides in 2012
•  Veterans Crisis Line number to your phone, it only takes a second - 1-800-273-8255, press 1 for veterans. Or text "838255" for support. 
• Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Hug you kids, HUG YOURSELF, tell our soldiers you thank them for their service.

We never know what someone is facing, yet we must let them know that there is reason to continue in this thing called LIFE.

YOU may not know it, but just by being there, just by extending a hand or understanding,

YOU may be the one who extends light and hope when another is standing in the dark

or finds themself in a fog that is both thick and dark.

...

Walk in Beauty

DRSES