Today is World Suicide Prevention Day

A simple thing you can do today in remembrance of World Suicide Prevention Day is to light a candle at 8:00 pm your time. Do this in memory of someone who died by suicide, for the hope of someone who has attempted suicide, for concern for a family that is grieving someone who either died by suicide or attempted suicide, or in support of suicide prevention.

National Suicide Prevention Week

Today marks the start of National Suicide Prevention Week. It's no different than CPR. Everyone should know the signs of depression and suicide. Please take the time to become aware of them on the American Association of Suicidology web site.

National Suicide Prevention Week

National Suicide Prevention week is September 6 - 12, 2009. The American Association of Suicidology has some information that can help you plan activities in your community. View the link here.

Purple and turquoise pins for suicide prevention

World Suicide Prevention Day is September 10. We’ve been using the colors purple and turquoise for people to show their support for people who have lost loved ones to suicide for several years. The color scheme was started by Sandy Martin and me when we were discussing how the suicide cause had no color but because many causes already use one color, we decided to go with two. We chose purple and turquoise because they are healing colors and our hope is that we can help people show their support for lives that have been altered in some way by suicide and show hope for the future with suicide prevention. Please order your pins soon here!

Video about a Family's Grief...Years Later

This video was made by fellow sibling survivor and filmmaker Jeff Orgill about his family years following his brother’s suicide. Jeff created the video for the AAS conference in April where he was speaking on a panel about men’s grief. Please check it out and pass it along.

Article from Australia that quotes me

This article just appeared June 11 (although it's still June 10 here in New Mexico!) in Australia.

Interviews and flying to Melbourne

I ran in the rain this morning in the park by the hotel. There were lots of dogs! Of course none of them were mine. I'm sure as I ran, mine were snoozing in their various spots at home in Albuquerque. I did a newspaper interview and just did a radio interview. One more radio interview before I head to the airport to fly to Melbourne. This last radio interview was from Nowra about two hours south of Sydney on the coast. He asked me about the gun laws and gun lobby in the US. The public relations people, I feel, have somewhat sensationalized the whole piece about guns in schools and such to the radio and tv people. I answer any questions that I am asked but I am always hesitant when it comes to such political issues, especially when I'm in a different country (I almost single-handedly started the troubles again in Northern Ireland during a session I did there when we were discussion religion...religion always gets me in trouble!). Also, my work is more on the postvention side, helping people cope after the suicide. I had to set the producer straight at the Kerri-Anne show that I was not here to discuss prevention (they were going to ask me about warning signs). I'm all about helping people survive their losses to live hopeful lives again.

Dr. Sally Witt radio show

I will be appearing on the Dr. Sally Witt radio show tomorrow (Wednesday, April 29). The info is linked here. Check out an interview we did on you tube: Interview #2.