September is Suicide Awareness Month, a time when we are encouraged to talk about something that many of us still find incredibly difficult to say out loud — suicide. And perhaps the hardest part is that sometimes, the people we lose are not people we thought were struggling. They could be the colleague who arrived at work every morning, the friend who was always making everyone laugh, the parent who kept the household going, or the person who kept saying, “I’m fine,” even when they weren’t. But talking about suicide cannot simply be about what happens after someone dies. It has to be about what happens before — the moments when someone is struggling, withdrawing, feeling
overwhelmed or losing hope. Do we know how to recognise when someone needs help? Do we know what to say without making things worse? And importantly, are we creating spaces where people feel safe enough to say, “I am not okay”? Today, we want to have an honest conversation about suicide — not to sensationalise it, but to understand it. We’ll look at some of the warning signs, the role that families, friends and communities can play, and where people can turn when they feel that they simply
cannot carry what they are carrying anymore.