This is a guest blog from Dr Alys Cole-King, who is a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist
and Co-Founder of Connecting with People. She is the Royal College of
Psychiatrists’ spokesperson on suicide and self-harm and also sits on their
Patient Safety Working Group. Alys works with Royal Colleges, voluntary bodies,
academics, patient leaders, carers and sits on the All Party Parliamentary
Group for Suicide and Self-harm Prevention. She promotes compassion, patient
safety and a public health approach to suicide prevention, wellbeing and
resilience.
Why we all need to
support the #TellMe Pledge’
"Stigma kills….Suicidal thoughts are far more common than people realise but we don’t talk
about them. Stigma means that it can be
embarrassing or frightening to tell another person and this is absolutely
critical to getting help. As a
psychiatrist, I have seen hundreds of people with suicidal thoughts
and
many people who tried to end their life and then changed their minds. In far too many cases that person had suffered
in silence and was too scared to tell anyone how they felt.
The stigma
surrounding suicide means that most people do not know how to approach someone
who they think might be suicidal. People
who are considering self harm or suicide do not know where or how to get help. At Connecting with People we, and our partners,
are dedicated to tackling these issues.
I am therefore
delighted, on behalf of Connecting with People, to support Grassroots and their partners Suicide Safer
Brighton & Hove in their #TellMe pledge initiative. In my view this is absolutely critical to
saving lives.
You can take the pledge here: http://bit.ly/TMPledge
Suicidal thoughts usually
start because people feel overwhelmed by their problems or their situation. This can happen to absolutely anyone. People find it hard to ‘see a way out’. It is not that they necessarily want their
life to end: it is just that they cannot cope with their emotional or physical
pain any more.
Suicide
prevention is like a massive jigsaw puzzle – it looks really complicated until
we get close and see its just made up of small pieces – all we have to do is
look after our piece of the puzzle – know how we can stay safe and where to get
help if we are worried about someone. The first step is to recognise that life is
not going well and to know that support is
available if you just know what to do and where to go.
Please sign up to the Grassroots pledge – help save a
life…it could be yours or someone you love."
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For more information about Connecting with People and
their training, campaigns and resources please see http://connectingwithpeople.org/
Please also connect with them on Twitter @AlysColeKing @openmindscwp @OpenMindsLtd
Other blogs about stigma by Alys:
The Day I Found Out Stigma Can Kill: http://bit.ly/1iI3SLV
Tackling Stigma Saves Lives: http://bit.ly/1bl4sOZ
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