Suicide Awareness Month: signs, symptoms & how to help
In this episode of “It’s Human To”, mental health professionals discuss the warning signs of suicide ideation in children and adults as well as the BIPOC community and transgender community. Learn how to help a loved one.
Transcript
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
The best thing I ever did for my mental health
was make sure I was surrounding myself with people I felt connected with. Start meditating. To travel with my family.
Was to learn how my mind worked so that I could work with it. And that was through a mindfulness practice.
[CALM MUSIC]
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 14.
How do we even approach this issue? What do we need to be saying or doing for our young people? What do you do in your own work to kind of help deal with this
as well? It's always shocking when I come in to work and I read the story and I say, oh, my god, a 10-year-old did what?
You know, and even though I'm trained in this and fellowship and board-certified and expertly trained, it still shocks you, right?
There's a misconception that asking someone if they're having suicidal thoughts will increase the likelihood of them completing suicide.
And I need to debunk that myth right now because that's not true. Asking someone if they feel as though they
want to end their life is not going to increase the likelihood of them completing suicide. As a matter of fact, the saying is that asking someone
is statistically more likely to save a life than to cause a suicide.
So, better to ask. One of the things that we find so often is that people are afraid to ask,
like Dr. Dom was speaking about. One is they're afraid of the answer. And two, they don't know what to say after they get the answer.
And so it's not-- it is about breaking the stigma and saying the words for somebody else. That's such a crucial part of it.
But if you're the person that is concerned about somebody else, you want to take care of yourself. And it's scary.
It is scary to think that somebody that you love or that you know may want to hurt themselves or kill themselves.
There are hotlines that you can call. 988 is one that has a wide variety of resources
and ability to ask, whether it's you that's feeling it or you're asking on behalf of somebody else. There are websites from the National Suicide networks
and institutions that can help you to find resources in your area. You can talk to therapists or other mental health providers
and ask them for a consult. There really are some quality articles and advice out there that can
be helpful in supporting you to help destigmatize the questions and getting support for someone else.
I think that there's been a rise in suicidality in Black and Brown communities over the pandemic.
And we are least likely to ask for help in that traditional way.
And so I think making it less of a stigma in our own communities to ask about it, to ask about health--
mental health-- is really important here as well.
[SOMBER MUSIC]
[CALM MUSIC]
There's not one size fits all for the signs and symptoms of suicide. [UPBEAT MUSIC]
If you're worried someone in your life is considering hurting themselves, here's exactly what to say to them and how to find the words.
Are you having thoughts of suicide? Are you considering hurting yourself? I am here.
I'm not going anywhere. I will help you get help. I believe you.
I understand the pain that you are in. [CALM MUSIC]
Reiterate to the person, you are staying with them, and stay with them until they can get help. Knowing that somebody is there and knowing
that somebody isn't going to be afraid and scared off by the intensity of your feelings and what you're thinking makes an enormous difference.
Don't hesitate to act if you or someone is having suicidal thoughts. [CALM MUSIC]
Transgender adolescents and individuals are much, much more likely to experience suicidal ideation
and suicide attempts than cisgender counterparts.
Suicidal ideation is having thoughts of suicide. And those could be fleeting thoughts or persistent.
We don't necessarily mean that someone has a plan or that they're imminently going to commit suicide.
But it's more of just like a feeling of not wanting to be here anymore, not wanting to exist.
It would be easier if I just could go away. The medicine of transgender care--
the hormones that we prescribe-- is really not that complicated. I tell my students it's so much easier than treating diabetes,
actually. The problem is it's not FDA-approved often times, that we don't have a lot of data behind it.
And so a lot of providers don't feel comfortable with that. But I always go back to that increased risk of suicide.
And it's up to like 45% that they are at that much of an increased risk. And so if we can prescribe hormones and help someone
medically transition and decrease that risk significantly, the benefit of that is absolutely undeniable.
We need to realize that not every transgender person has gender dysphoria. Not every transgender person has suicidal ideation
or mental health issues. Many transgender people are the pictures of mental and physical health, of course,
just like the general population. To support young trans and non-binary people really, again, using their names as they want to be called,
correct pronouns, making sure that we're letting people know what our pronouns are as cisgender people.
I think a huge one is mentoring younger folks to go into medicine and go into science
and go into research, whether it be social sciences or medicine or whatever, so that we get many, many, many, many, many
more transgender and gender-nonconforming people who are actually doing the work. [CALM MUSIC]
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
[AUDIO LOGO]
And to support young trans and non-binary people, really, again using their names as they want to be called,
correct pronouns, making sure that we're letting people know what our pronouns are as cisgender people.
I think a huge one is mentoring younger folks to go into medicine and go
mental health behavior
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