CMHA Kelowna

Supporting a Mentally Healthy Kelowna

Suicide affects us all: Here’s how you can help

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(Note: This article originally appeared in the Kelowna Capital News)

 

Sept. 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD), an opportunity to spread messages of help, hope, and healing. Awareness days can increase the public’s knowledge about specific issues and reduce the stigma that often keeps people from reaching out for help. Awareness days like WSPD are a great start, but they also come and go.

The Kelowna branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association – CMHA Kelowna – wants everyone in our community to be equipped to support a loved one, or even a stranger, to keep safe if they are having thoughts of suicide. These skills can be applied throughout a lifetime, beyond one day or month of the year.

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Record attendance and amount raised for Ride

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It’s a momentous sign that Kelowna is coming together as a mentally healthy community, one rider at a time.  Approximately 500 people came out to ride and $130,000 has been raised, with more coming in, for the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Ride Don’t Hide, which took place in Kelowna June 24th – record numbers for the event.

Locally called The Payton & Dillon Budd Memorial Ride, in memory of two brothers who lost their lives, the ride was billed as a rallying point for people to come together and get loud about mental health and suicide prevention. It’s a sentiment that resonated with the community. “All of us, CMHA Kelowna staff and volunteers, we are all overwhelmed by the response to this event,” says Shelagh Turner, CMHA Kelowna’s Executive Director. “It sends an important message that says to anyone who is having mental health issues or thoughts of suicide – you do not have to hide, you do not have to stay silent. As a community, you are not alone and we are there for you.”

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Celebrity suicide deaths – preventing “contagion”

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In our culture, we are mostly silent about suicide. But when celebrities die by suicide – as Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain did last week, the issue becomes front-page news. Anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide can attest to its utter devastation. This devastation becomes widespread when famous people die, as evidenced by the waves of social media posts and tributes to Spade and Bourdain. We try to make sense of celebrity suicides and we turn to the media for details. Robin Williams’ death in 2014 was widely publicized, and when Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, her death was glamorized in the media, including details of the method. The deaths of these two famous people led to an increase in suicides. That’s because sensational reporting can create “contagion,” where the suicide becomes the tipping point for people who are already at-risk.

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CMHA Kelowna
504 Sutherland Avenue, Kelowna, BC. V1Y 5X1
Phone: 250-861-3644
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