Is Awareness Fueling Suicide Triggers?

Is Awareness Fueling Suicide Triggers?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 11, 2018

Right now there are more people talking about suicides, and more people trying to prevent their own, at the same time more are doing it? Who does this make sense to? If it make sense to anyone at all, they need to seek professional help...fast!

A report on NBC about the rise in calls to crisis lines mention this part.

Draper said the reason for the uptick is two-fold: a celebrity suicide can trigger suicidal thoughts in people who might already vulnerable to them, and publicizing the phone number to call for support increases odds that people will call.

Is it good that people are calling for help, or is it bad that with so many looking for help, seeing the rise is suicides on the flip side is worse?

How many times have you seen a commercial with happy people as the announcer talks about the medical condition making their lives miserable, followed by warnings of how the medication being advertised could make them suicidal? How many times does it take for reporters and researchers to begin to link any of them to the rise in suicides across American?

How many times do you have to read reports on opioid abuse before researchers share their warnings with reporters working on suicides?

How many times does it take before reporters understand the effects of "Lariam, an anti-malarial drug" connected to suicides as well as murders?

How many times does it take for reports from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to release the suicide numbers before reporters actually understand they are two totally different reports?

How many times does it take for the reporters in this country to correct the false narrative of awareness on anything when they have been oblivious for the last decade?

The awareness folks like to trim everything down to a soundbite, a slogan, a stunt, as long as they do not have to answer any questions. Reporters have been all too willing to oblige them. 

Are these "awareness" risers triggering veterans instead of helping them? I mean, what it looks like when you are on the other end of the topic, knowing they don't seem to offer hope while feeding despair, is they really don't care at all.

When someone offers understanding, like on the Crisis lines, then you believe you do matter and that gives you an understanding that you are not only worth helping, but had someone to help you.

So when does the public get the dire warnings of suicides the same way drug companies are required to do when selling their products?

How about selling...no, make that giving, hope back to those who have lost it? Isn't that what gets you up every morning with hope that it will be better than yesterday was?