Every 40 seconds, someone loses their life to suicide.
On 10 October, raise awareness of the scale of suicide around the world and the role that each of us can play to help prevent it.
The theme of this year’s event is suicide and suicide prevention.
Every year close to 800,000 people globally take their own life and there are many more people who attempt suicide. During the course of an average day in Canada, ten people will die by suicide.
Every suicide is a tragedy that affects families, communities and has long-lasting effects on the people left behind. Life for those left behind becomes an existence of heartache, what ifs, guilt, depression, and regret.
Fact Sheet on Suicide in Canada
Warning signs of suicide
Warning signs that might suggest someone is at risk of suicide include:
- thinking or talking about suicide
- having a plan for suicide
Other signs and behaviours that might suggest that someone is at risk of suicide include:
- withdrawal from family, friends or activities
- feeling like you have no purpose in life or reason for living
- increasing substance use, like drugs, alcohol and inhalants
- feeling trapped or that there’s no other way out of a situation
- feeling hopeless about the future or feeling like life will never get better
- talking about being a burden to someone or about being in unbearable pain
- anxiety or significant mood changes, such as anger, sadness or helplessness
Get help
If you need to talk and you:
- are not feeling yourself
- are experiencing a crisis
- have emotional pain
- know someone who needs help
The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention provides a list of crisis centres across Canada. Crisis centres are there for people who are reaching out for help.
Kids Help Phone, the First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness Help Line and the Canada Suicide Prevention Service also offer 24/7 support.
How to help someone in crisis
Talking honestly, responsibly and safely about suicide can help you determine if someone needs help. If you want to help someone in crisis, try:
- listening and showing concern
- showing concern can be an immediate way to help someone
- listening won’t increase the risk of suicide and it may save a life
- talking with them and reassuring them that they’re not alone
- letting them know you care
- connecting them with a:
- crisis line
- counsellor
- trusted person (neighbour, friend, family member or Elder)
Someone young, middle age or older who has been put on antidepressants whether for pain or depression, add meds, and then not helped by a G! IF THEY EVEN HAVE A SPECIALIST, or taken off a drug in 10 days by a psychiatrist doesn’t know any of this stuff Glen. What they are supposed to do. The bloody government, medical doctors need to do their job, not be controlled by the greedy pharmaceutical companies. This putting people on meds, unnecessarily, raising the dosage unnecessarily or taking them off it too quickly and then leaving them to recover on their own has messed up too many people’s lives! It has too stop! How many suicides to you and I really know about? Most are kept hidden still