This week is National Suicide Prevention Week (September 8 – 14).  

However well we try and express ourselves in our mother tongue, our language often leaves us wanting, desperately searching for words to explain, or to even understand. Through our lives many of us will have been faced with situations where words and platitudes just can't ease the pain, let alone stop it, so we stand there embarrassed and desperate wanting to help, but not understanding how.

We are often told: “You are never given more than you can cope with.” What utter hogwash; if that were true no one would ever contemplate suicide let alone go through with it. We as a community must realise the greatest resource in any society are its people, and we need to change our thoughts on mental anguish and illness, we as a collective must try and understand the pain and desperation many feel today and try and find ways to help our fellow citizens.

Government bodies, doctors and charities at best can only scratch at the surface of the problems, as times get even tougher and more and more people become desperate and feel as if life holds little or no value to them, that is where we the common folks can have a great impact. In truth we will never be able to fully understand the burden many have to carry, but we can understand the pain their passing will cause to their friends and family.

So, what can we do? The answer is a simple one, allow time in your day to throw out a smile or a kind word to a stranger, pass the time of day as passing on the streets, strike up a conversation with someone in the queue you are in, that momentary connection you have may make all the difference to an isolated soul.

All these things cost little to nothing but time, the reward is to see a smile on a stranger’s face and that warm fuzzy feeling knowing you have made a difference, even if only a small one.