http://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Suicide-Prevention-Awareness-Month
September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, as someone diagnosed with chronic depression this sort of brings mixed feelings to me and apparently to a lot of folks suffering from depression.
Suicide Prevention is definitely a hot button topic and one I take seriously. The problem becomes how people view the intent and reaction to it. reddit.com/r/depression is full of reactions, mostly negative towards the initiative. The thing is, for people who have been struggling with depression, the ‘support’ upsurge seen and the whole #suicideprevention hashtag comes off as an empty gesture. For many, people always like to rally behind causes and to claim they are doing their part for social justice but the reality is for all the social media visibility there is often that’s all it is. People feeling good about themselves for having done something socially uplifting. You want uplifting? Talk to your friend suffering from depression, volunteer at a suicide hotline, go with a friend to a therapy session if they are scared.
I won’t claim much of a moral high road here, I try to highlight and provide information as well but I don’t do so with the intent of getting hits on my page or attention, hell my name doesn’t even appear on this blog except for a single buried reference to my first name. The thing is people can do much more than simply dropping a hashtag and feeling like they’ve done something. So my personal ask, don’t be one of those lemming followers resharing and posting things about Suicide Prevention Awareness. Sit down, take a look at your friends, see if anyone could use a good ear to listen to them.
