A wonderful first-person tale of survival …

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-indominatable-will-of-the-soul-to-live-a-survivors-account-of-suicide/7044?utm_source=On+Being+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a633b0e2ef-20141129_Carrie_Newcomer_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1c66543c2f-a633b0e2ef-68476745

An important statement from MHE (Mental Health Europe) on the eve of the launch of DSM-5 … the times they are a-changing …

http://www.mhe-sme.org/news-and-events/mhe-press-releases/dsm5_more_harm_than_good.html

Seems like suicide prevention (industry) in the US is finally embracing the survivor voice with some enthusiasm. First, an editorial in the latest SPRC newsletter…

"Advancing Peer Support in Suicide Prevention | Suicide Prevention Resource Center"

http://www.sprc.org/directorsblog/advancing-peer-support-suicide-prevention?utm_source=Weekly+Spark+March+8+2013&utm_campaign=Weekly+Spark+March+8+2013&utm_medium=email

NB1 – the link in this editorial to the "What Happens Now?" website is in fact the new website for the AAS (attempt) survivor blog that I posted about a while back. Although it’s still got the AAS logo, they’ve taken it out of the AAS website… hmmm… wonder why?

NB2 – and the link to " Live Through This" was also posted here a while back

The third link in this editorial is to the Suicide Attempters Task Force at the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention…

http://actionallianceforsuicideprevention.org/task-force/suicide-attempt-survivors

… which is another new initiative indicating that the survivor voice is beginning to be taken seriously in the US. This "National Alliance" organisation is also quite new and a major development in suicide prevention in the US. I’ve been watching them with some trepidation because they seem very medical model, and you’ll find some really awful "expert" statements/opinions here… among the (very American) cast of thousands that you’ll find in this (very American) public/private alliance… Likewise, this Attempters Task Force names about 18 members, with too many suicide industry "experts" for my liking, but I recognise at least a few survivors among them too so hopefully it can be a genuine forum for our voices to be heard. We’ll have to wait and see what they come up with…

But I’ve got to say, there’s been more action around the survivor voice in the last few months than we’ve seen in the last ten years… which has got to be a good thing… I hope… Oh gawd, I dread that the survivor voice will be carefully and selectively co-opted into supporting the dangerous status quo medical mainstream … fingers crossed this won’t happen…

Hooray! Brilliant! This is what we need… some smart, funny street theatre…

Amidst all the noise and nonsense in the US about gun control and "mental illness", here’s a breath of fresh air… a sensible, moderate and cost-effective program to reduce gun deaths.

http://uwire.com/2013/02/25/mpd-advocates-suicide-prevention-issues-gun-locks/

Not the full answer, of course, but a sensible and practical focus on the reality that most gun deaths are suicides – as opposed to the hype and panic around "mentally ill" mass murderers.

I believe some other states/counties in the US are also providing free gun locks… I dips me lid to you all for these occasional moments of sanity…

I rarely meet people with these views, or see their poisonous literature, but you sort of know they’re out there and still influencing the toxic culture we have around suicide.

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/suicide-no-way-to-go

Just imagine if you were suicidal and found yourself in the "care" of someone who regarded suicide as a "direct offense against God", "a gravely evil choice" and “a gravely immoral act".

I really believe that doctors, counsellors and other therapists that we might encounter during suicidal times should be legally obliged to disclose any religious views they have about suicide. Such hateful, ideological prejudices are really dangerous, just like similar ones that regard homosexuality as evil and immoral.

Yes, it’s 2013 but we still need to beware that these scary people exist …

Take care…

PS And why aren’t the suicide prevention "experts" speaking out against such hateful, dangerous people? These views aren’t from some anonymous Twitter rant, they’re published in a "respectable" journal speaking to the American Catholic community. They claim a readership of 100,000+ and this article got over 140 Facebook ‘Likes’.

Wow! Here’s another new website that’s putting a human face to suicide survivors. Please visit, meet the survivors, check out the fab video… and if you can, help Dese’Rae to complete her project by donating to her Kickstarter fund…

http://livethroughthis.org/

A report on the "explosive growth of suicides in South Korea", especially among older women. The NYT is careful, quite correctly, not to confuse correlation with causation…

"The epidemic is the counterpoint to the nation’s runaway economic success, which has worn away at the Confucian social contract that formed the bedrock of Korean culture for centuries."

… but the link to massive and rapid cultural changes in recent times seems pretty strong. One phrase that jumped out at me was…

“The family was always an extended self"…

… i.e. suicide is best understood as a crisis of the self… and how we need to be mindful of cultural variations/diversity in how we each develop our sense of self… and ditto when our sense of self falls apart…

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/world/asia/in-korea-changes-in-society-and-family-dynamics-drive-rise-in-elderly-suicides.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/us/to-lower-suicide-rates-new-focus-turns-to-guns.html?pagewanted=all

Spotted while browsing the AFSP website…

"Studies in the last 40 years have confirmed that physicians die by suicide more frequently than others of their gender and age in both the general population and other professional occupations. On the average, death by suicide is about 70 percent more likely among male physicians in the United States than among other professionals, and 250 percent to 400 percent higher among female physicians. Unlike almost all other population groups in which men die by suicide about four times more frequently than women, among physicians the suicide rate is very similar for both men and women."

http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05804002-E8F4-13AB-2D4B97A0815A2744