“My
mother also was wonderful. She cooked meal after
meal for me during my long bouts of depression, helped me
with my laundry, and helped pay my medical bills.
She endured my irritability and boringly bleak mood, drove
me to the doctor, took me to pharmacies, and took me shopping.
Like a gentle mother cat who picks up a straying
kitten by the nape of its neck, she kept her marvelously
maternal eyes wide-open, and, if I floundered too far away,
she brought me back into a geographic and emotional range
of security, food, and protection. Her formidable
strength slowly eked its way into my depleted marrowbone.
It, coupled with medicine for my brain and superb
psychotherapy for my mind, pulled me through day after impossibly
hard day.”
Jamison,
K. R. (1995). An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.
Knopf: New York, NY: 118-119.
Family
members can be mothers, life partners, sisters, cousins, grandfathers,
friends, great uncles, or hold countless other roles within
the family unit. Suicide affects families and families
can affect suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Researchers
have not determined a cause for suicide, but are getting closer
to determining what life situations, feelings, and behaviors
put a person at risk for suicide.
Family members
have an opportunity to learn about suicide to help protect their
loved ones as well as to learn about how to support families
after a suicide.
Talking
and learning about associated factors with suicide, protective
factors, and mental illness can help family members to get their
loved ones and other members of their community the help that
they need.
There
are steps that family members can take to make sure that their
loved ones stay safe from self-harm. Learn about what
to do in a non-crisis and crisis situation.
Researchers
help us to learn about suicide and help to prevent suicide.
Find research resources to increase your current understanding
about suicide and suicide prevention.
