Idaho launches its own suicide prevention hotline, the only state where that's been missing, since 2006. The Gem State has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, so this resource could prove vital to Idahoans.

The Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline (ISPH) will be Idaho's only statewide suicide prevention hotline. It will launch and volunteers will take calls starting on Monday at 1 p.m.

“It's a way for people to reach other, who don't really have other supports. We really want to help people, before they get to that point, where they are seriously at risk for suicide," said John Reusser, ISPH Executive Director.

Previously, the calls from Idahoans to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline were transferred to hotlines in other states. With the launch of the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline, all of the calls from Idaho will be taken by ISPH.  

Now volunteers from Idaho hope to better relate to those struggling in our state. "Our phone workers are from Idaho, so they will better understand problems that Idahoans are facing. With a rural population, there is a sense of isolation," said Reusser.

Idaho's previous suicide prevention hotline closed in 2006, due to a lack of funding. Since then, Idaho has been the only state in the country without a statewide suicide hotline.

Idaho has one of the country's highest suicide rates.  Those at a higher risk include military veterans, soldiers and their families, persons dealing with job loss or financial strain, teenage boys, farmers, Native Americans and Idaho's elder males.

Suicide prevention hotlines are a proven means to help prevent tragic deaths.  Last month, around 400 Idaho
residents made calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

ISPH (1-800-273-TALK) will initially operate Monday through Thursday, 9a.m. - 5p.m., with Fridays being added next year, as more volunteers are trained. 

Volunteers and donors are needed to keep the hotline moving forward. For more information about ISPH, go to IdahoSuicidePrevention.org.

An impactful article on what goes through one person's mind and the crisis facing


Matt Kuntz did not want to die. But he thought he must.  It was November 2000 when he mapped out his exit strategy.

“It felt like you’re a person in a dark room, terrified and scared of the dark,” said Kuntz, 35, now executive director of Montana’s Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “All you can feel is that single doorknob.
You know that you don’t want to turn it, but in the end, can you be in the dark any longer?”

 From all appearances, Kuntz seemed to have it all. He has a keen intellect and was a remarkable athlete, playing rugby, all-state football, wrestling and swimming. In 1999, he graduated from West Point and was commissioned an Army infantry officer.

Life was good.

Then, over the course of six months while stationed in Hawaii, a severe ankle injury in Ranger School left him crippled and his military aspirations in tatters. On top of that, his fiancée betrayed him, and he was homesick for
Montana.

The confluence of events triggered earlier bouts of depression that had been suppressed since high school and West Point.

“I couldn’t take it another second,” Kuntz said. “The pain hurt so bad – deep pain.”

He looped a rope around a rafter in the attic, secured it with an overhand hitch knot and tested it to ensure it would hold his 200 pounds. As a chair wobbled beneath his feet, he tested the noose again.

“You feel like you’re under water,” he said. “All you can think about is that breath and being overwhelmed by the torment your brain is throwing at you. All you can think about is ending it. I’ve been at the bottom of the Madison River in March getting bashed around by rapids. I can tell you, that’s nowhere near as terrifying as being in the grips of depression.”

Before he could go through with it, he decided to go downstairs and write a note. As he descended the steps, he stopped to say a prayer.

 “God, I love you. But I just can’t do this any more. If you have some reason that I should stay alive, I’ll give you five minutes to show me a sign.”

He then drafted two notes, but trashed them, settling finally on brevity.  “I’m sorry,” he wrote, and signed it “Matt.”  He tacked the note on the wall and climbed the stairs again.

As he slipped the noose around his neck, he realized he hadn’t paid his rent. Out of respect for his landlords, he wanted to pay them. But he didn’t think he had any blank checks, and the daily withdrawal limit on his ATM card was short of what he needed.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Kuntz said. “Your brain is not working. It’s fundamentally not working.”

His mind wrestled with whether to go looking for a blank check or just get on with it.  He removed the noose, stepped off the chair and frantically scoured his apartment for a check. He found one, filled it out and walked outside to drop it in the mailbox. On his way back, he noticed his neighbor, Jeff, sitting on his porch and crying.

The men talked for the next two hours. Jeff’s marriage was on the rocks, he feared he was about to be laid off and was fearful of what it would mean for his children.

“I didn’t have answers, but we talked until he felt better,” Kuntz said. “Somewhere along the way, I began to feel better, too. Helping him took my brain away from that irrational thought. I believe for a fact that my prayer was answered.”

An estimated 15 Montanans attempt suicide every day. In 2011, at least 452 people completed the act. Montanans kill themselves with greater frequency than any other state in the nation. It is such a longstanding
problem in the state that mental health leaders characterize it as a public health crisis.

The crisis has many causes: a shortage of mental health professionals and mental health facilities; the state’s high rates of alcoholism; a cowboy culture where seeking treatment may be seen as weakness; and the prevalence of firearms.

Kuntz was no stranger to suicide or mental illness. As a boy, he lost a friend to an eating disorder. As a teen, two of his buddies at Capital High School in Helena killed themselves.

In March 2007, his stepbrother Chris Dana, a Montana National Guardsman, returned from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder and fatally shot himself.

It was about that time that Kuntz became the first director of NAMI Montana, campaigning to improve mental health care in Montana and change the way the public perceives mental illness.

“I felt I had the opportunity to change some big things,” he said. “We need to have a better understanding of mental illness if we want to keep these people alive.”

NAMI is the nation’s largest grass-roots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of millions of Americans affected by mental illness. NAMI advocates for access to services, treatment and research. It is committed to raising awareness of mental illness.

NAMI Montana has affiliates in Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Flathead, Great Falls, Helena, Lewistown, Livingston, Mission Valley and Missoula.

Cindy Uken is a reporter for the Billings Gazette. Her reporting on Montana’s suicide epidemic was undertaken with the help of a California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism.

A new suicide prevention campaign called ‘Suicide in the Middle East: prevalent but preventable’ will renew the drive to lower the suicide rate in the UAE which, according to various statistics, is at 5-6 per 100,000.  The World Health Organisation pegs the global average at 16 per 100,000.

Though the figures in the UAE are lower compared to global estimates, psychiatrics, psychologists and emergency medicine specialists suggest that the number of attempted suicide cases is on the rise.

The campaign by the UAE-based American Centre for Psychiatry and Neurology (ACPN) in conjunction with the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) was unveiled during a conference on November 26, 2012.

In its initial phase, the annual campaign — the first in Dubai — will include awareness activities targeting health care professionals, government authorities, community leaders, non-profit organisations and educational
institutions. Last year, a similar campaign was rolled out in Abu Dhabi. In the second phase, public awareness drives will be considered.

Dr Yousuf Abouallaban, managing director and consultant psychiatrist at ACPN told Gulf News: “Almost every week, we come across patients who attempt suicide or think about suicide. Through the campaign, we will host a series of lectures and workshops, addressing warning signs of suicide and how to deal with people who are suicidal. ”

The available figures of suicide rate in the UAE are underrepresented, said Dr Alan Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, and conference speaker.

Speaking to Gulf News, he said: “We believe that the rate is much higher than reported. Crucial to suicide prevention strategies is data collection and understanding risk factors. Unless we have national data in the
UAE both in terms of prevalence and risk factors, solving the problem can’t occur because it is like throwing darts in the wind, not knowing where to target.”

Dr Berman’s view was shared by Dr Adel Karrani, speaker and assistant head of the Psychiatry Department at Rashid Hospital. “Unless there are statistics, we cannot provide a solution,” he told Gulf News.

According to him, the UAE doesn’t have any specific programmes in place for suicide prevention. However efforts are being made to increase awareness among health care workers. “If we recognise the symptoms, we can save lives. Health care workers need to be trained to conduct suicide risk assessments. Almost 50
per cent of suicidal cases are handled by a hospital’s casualty department,” he said.

I'm seeing more and more attention being paid to this crisis but not enough solutions being offered. 


Gregg Zoroya, USA Today

With six weeks left in the year, the Army and Navy are already reporting record numbers of suicides, with the Air Force and Marine Corps close to doing the same, making 2012 the worst year for military suicides since careful tracking began in 2001.

The deaths are now occurring at a rate faster than one per day. On Nov. 11, confirmed or suspected suicides among active-duty forces across the military reached 323, surpassing the Pentagon's previous high of 310 suicides set in 2009.

Of that total, the Army accounted for 168, surpassing its high last year of 165; 53 sailors took their own lives, one more than last year.  The Air Force and Marine Corps are only a few deaths from record numbers.  Fifty-six airmen had committed suicide as of Nov. 11, short of the 60 in 2010.  There have been 46 suicides among Marines, whose worst year was 2009 with 52.  "We continue to reach out to and embrace those who are struggling," the Army's chief personnel officer, Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, said in a statement Sunday. "We've taken great strides to prevent suicides, but our work isn't done."

Military and medical leaders have been searching for answers to what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta describes as an "epidemic" of suicides ever since the numbers began increasing among soldiers and Marines in 2005.

 Military suicide researcher David Rudd sees a direct link with the effects of combat and frequent deployments.
"The reason you're going to see record numbers is because these wars are drawing down and these young men and women are returning home," Rudd said. "When they return home, that's where the conflicts surface."  

While post-traumatic stress disorder was not a factor in large numbers of suicides, data show, among nearly 85% there were failed relationships, something linked to frequent separations.

 Still, at at least a third of soldiers who killed themselves this year never went to war, and some leaders draw a correlation with societal stress, perhaps related to the poor economy.  "This is not just a military issue or an Army issue," said Gen. Lloyd Austin III, Army vice chief of staff.  "Across the military, we're a microcosm of what's in the nation," said Navy Vice Adm. Martha Herb, director personnel readiness.

The trend in suicides now seems to be impacting the branches that have had fewer troops in combat: the Navy and Air Force.  Suicide rates for the military, while rising, have remained lower than for the general population until this year. The current rate for the Army is close to 30 per 100,000, outpacing an estimated 24-per-100,000 rate among a demographically similar civilian population, according to military statistics.

The record-setting numbers reported by the military pertain only to active duty troops. The Army, for example, has recorded an additional 114 suicides among G.I.s in the National Guard or Reserve who were demobilized — its citizen soldiers.

When Army suicides among those on active duty and demobilized status are combined, the number exceeds the 207 soldiers who have died so far this year in Afghanistan, a difference further skewed because some of those combat zone deaths were also suicides.

The military in recent years has invested more than $50 million in research efforts to produce evidence-based tools for preventing suicide.  Among the first studies is one involving 50 soldiers who attempted suicide at Fort Carson, Colo. It recently found that by teaching them meditation and relaxation skills to manage emotions and relationships, suicidal behavior was dramatically reduced, said Rudd, who is leading the research.

 "We weren't thinking about the issue as really one of curing mental illness," he said. "(It) is about installation of hope."

I was over at adapttoanything.org and found a great article that I wanted to share:


EMILEE G. WINN ADAPTS TO ANYTHING
 
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 16, 2012, 6:00 PM
WRITTEN BY BRITTANY BATTISTA

LEARN MORE ABOUT EMILEE W

Suicide is always an ugly aspect to consider, but EmiLee G. Winn survived it. Though, that’s not to say that she doesn’t still carry a few bad memories. With her parents divorced, she moved to Arizona with her mother, a friend, and said friend’s two kids. Unfortunately, being deaf took its toll on schoolwork. EmiLee was sent to an institution to help with her condition, but even though she was popular on campus she felt like a stranger among her family. She felt completely separate from her mother, even more so when her mother got remarried as she was sent away. EmiLee attempted to take her own life at the age of ten and was sent to therapy.

At fourteen, she decided it was time to reach out to her family again. Soon, she went back to public school. Sadly, later her mother was diagnosed with Colorectal Cancer. A month of treatments later and it was discovered that EmiLee’s husband of thirteen years cheated on her – they were promptly divorced. She tried to take her life again. Thankfully, it didn’t work.

May 11th, 2010, her baby brother succeeded where she had failed. It was then she realized the pain that her own death would cause to the family. The mother was still being treated for her cancer, but each day she would also drive to work, often on the same day as her treatments, and was awarded for her dedication. In June, it became terminal. EmiLee made one promise to her mother: that she wouldn’t miss her own appointment, to be rid of the precancerous cells in her body before she was diagnosed too. 

Though she felt the need to be with her mother, she kept her promise … and one hour later she received word that her mother had passed away. She cherished those last few months. She saw her mother as a strong role model who would say that God was good to her instead of wallowing in self-pity. One of her last requests was that the death of EmiLee’s brother would be known to have been caused by an adverse reaction to his medication until she had died, so now the truth is out.

A year and a half later, EmiLee is coaching others on Facebook in a Suicide Survivors group, deciding that no one else should feel that kind of pain. She understands them and reaches out in ways that others couldn’t. After all that has happened to her, EmiLee is determined to make a change in the world as a Suicide Survivor.

Many can tell you the overwhelming feeling that panic attacks bring.  This story is a good example of someone who battles them and found victory on the golf course.


From Yahoo Sports:
Charlie Beljan ended his rookie season on the PGA Tour in style with a win in the final event of the season at the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Classic. Like most first-time winner, the win didn't come on a silver platter; Beljan had to grind at various points during the week and hold off a couple hard-charging challengers on the back nine.

All of that's fairly commonplace when you're going for your first PGA Tour win. But unlike most first-time winners, Beljan had to deal with another major hurdle early in the week that threatened to derail a brilliant start: a panic attack during the second round that put the 28-year-old in the hospital on Friday night.

"I believe that everything happens for a reason, and sometimes days like Friday weren't very enjoyable, but the score was wonderful, and I think it taught me that it doesn't matter about your golf swing or your putting stroke," Beljan said. "I was literally fighting for my life and I just think that you can't ever give up."

Despite the setback, Beljan never gave up over the final two days. He returned to the course on Saturday to fire a solid 71, and followed it up on Sunday with a 69 to win by two shots.

With the win, the rookie locked up a two-year PGA Tour exemption and joined Tommy Gainey and Jonas Blixt as the third-first time winner during the Fall Series.

More members of the U.S. Armed Forces died by their own hand — usually with a gun — during the first nine months of this year than had their lives ended by the enemy in Afghanistan during the same period.

That startling suicide statistic has led to a realization by National Guard units across the country that more effort needs to be spent identifying Guard members who could be suicidal, and getting them the help they need before a tragedy occurs.

During the first nine months of 2012, there were 247 suspected suicides among Army active- and reserve-duty personnel, compared to 222 military deaths among active and reserve personnel from “hostile causes” as of Sept. 28.

Members of the Massachusetts National Guard are as much at risk as their counterparts across the nation, although the number of suicides among Massachusetts Guard members since 9-11 has remained in the single digits, according to Major Gen. L. Scott Rice, adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard.

“That’s still more than we have had in the past,” said Major Gen. Rice, although he did not have exact figures.

“Every single one is more,” he said. “Every single one is special, making it important that we figure out why, what and where and how do we make it better for the future.”

With each suicide a tragedy, efforts are now under way to identify and treat Guard members who might be vulnerable, as well as build resiliency among Guard members before they head overseas.

In the commonwealth, those efforts will involve a partnership between the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, the National Guard and the Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services.

An announcement of the joint venture was made last week at the medical school by Dr. Michael Collins,
the school’s chancellor; Coleman Nee, secretary of the state Department of Veterans’ Services; Maj. Gen. Rice; and Dr. Barry Feldman, director of psychiatry programs in public safety and assistant professor of psychiatry at
the medical school.

“Working together, we will build a collaborative program that will not only help address the unique health needs of today’s members of the Massachusetts National Guard, but which also can serve as a model for addressing the needs of military members of all branches, as well as veterans, across the nation,” said Dr. Collins.

Nationally, suicides among active and non-active military personnel are increasing. In July alone, a
record 38 confirmed or suspected suicides were recorded, including 26 among active-duty soldiers and 12 among National Guard or reserve soldiers who were not on active duty.

The behavioral health faculty at the medical school will collaborate with the National Guard and the Department of Veterans’ Services to implement suicide prevention strategies specifically designed for military personnel, including training by medical school experts for National Guard personnel in suicide prevention and resiliency building.

The medical school and Veterans’ Services Department participated with the National Guard in a statewide stand down this past September that focused on suicide prevention.

According to Maj. Gen. Rice, there were numerous Guard members who volunteered to be trained to identify comrades who are at risk for suicide, as well as to find them help.

“It’s not an assigned duty,” he said.

Resiliency — helping to fortify Guard members who may go oversees — is also an important feature of the work that will go on between behavioral faculty members and the military, according to Dr. Feldman.

Resiliency training does not mean just preparing Guard members for some of the sites and scenes they may encounter, but also letting them know that the various reactions they may experience are not something they have to keep to themselves.

“They need to know that if they experience feelings that are upsetting, it is all right to talk to others about this,” said Dr. Feldman.

The partnership will also seek and educate civilian medical personnel, who are often the primary medical providers for reserve members and veterans, to prepare them to respond to the unique social, psychological and
medical needs impacting military members and combat veterans.  Medical personnel can be trained in the intricacies of military language and acronyms, as well as the confusing myriad of federal, state and military regulations that often prove an obstacle to getting services. Additional training in military culture could also be provided to civilian medical personnel.

According to Dr. Feldman, UMass Medical School has joined more than 100 medical schools around the country in mobilizing its resources “to meet the health care needs of the military and their families.”

There is a national hot line that those in the military or their families can use. The National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline number is (800) 273-8255; press 1 for the Military Crisis Line.

I've been asked my view on this issue and I'll be sharing that in the near future. 


A divisive ballot initiative that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with medication prescribed by physicians was narrowly defeated.

The Death with Dignity Campaign conceded this morning, as unofficial results tallied by the Associated Press showed that, with 95 percent of precincts reporting, 51 percent of voters had opposed the measure, compared with 49 percent in favor.

“For the past year, the people of Massachusetts participated in an open and honest conversation about allowing terminally ill patients the choice to end their suffering,” the campaign said in a statement released at 6:30 a.m. “The Death with Dignity Act offered the terminally ill the right to make that decision for themselves, but regrettably, we fell short. Our grassroots campaign was fueled by thousands of people from across this state, but outspent five to one by groups opposed to individual choice.

“Even in defeat, the voters of Massachusetts have delivered a call to action that will continue and grow until the terminally ill have the right to end their suffering, because today dying people needlessly endure in our Commonwealth and do not have the right to control their most personal medical decision.”

The ballot question has been the subject of a ferocious political battle.  After a Boston Globe poll in September showed voters overwhelmingly supported the measure, support steadily eroded in the face of a last-minute effort by a diverse group of opponents, including religious leaders, anti-abortion activists, and conservatives who aired their message in aggressive television advertisements and at church services. The concerted opposition campaign, which also included a major physician’s group, raised more than three times as much money as proponents.

In a statement, Rosanne Bacon Meade, chairperson of the Committee Against Assisted Suicide, said that while some votes remain to be counted, the efforts to stop the measure had been successful. She added that she hoped the result would spark discussions about how to improve medical care at the end of life.

“We believe Question 2 was defeated because the voters came to see this as a flawed approach to end of life care, lacking in the most basic safeguards,” Meade said in the statement. “A broad coalition of medical professionals, religious leaders, elected officials and, voters from across the political spectrum made clear that these flaws were too troubling for a question of such consequence.”

“Tuesday’s vote demonstrates that the people of the Commonwealth recognize that the common good was best served in defeating Question 2,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in a statement.

Massachusetts would have followed Oregon and Washington, which have passed similar initiatives to allow terminally ill patients to seek life-ending drugs from physicians. Donations to opposition groups, which raised nearly $2.6 million, came from far-flung Catholic dioceses, fueled in part by fear of a domino effect if the measure were to gain a foothold in Massachusetts.

Proponents of the measure raised about $700,000.

Other efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide in New England have failed. In 2000, a ballot initiative in Maine lost by a close margin.  Legislative efforts to pass a similar bill in Vermont and New Hampshire have
been defeated in recent years.

Voters said they formed their opinions about the controversial ballot initiative after careful consideration, informed by personal experiences with family members and by concerns about the safeguards written into the law.

North End resident Paul Santoro, 42, cast a vote against the initiative.

“I’m actually in favor of assisted suicide, but not how this is written,” Santoro said, citing concerns about the proposal’s lack of required psychiatric evaluations and family notification and the lack of tracking for any leftover
pills.

Santoro, who works in sales, said he has five children and worries about young people getting access to dangerous, untracked medications.

Alex Coon, 37, voting at the Dante Club in Somerville, said he voted for assisted suicide for a very personal reason.

“My grandmother was Dutch, and she always said, ‘When I get sick, take me home to Holland, because they’ll let me die,’ ” he said.

The Massachusetts ballot measure was modeled after similar legislation passed by voters in Oregon in 1994. If it had passed, it would have allowed terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request medications to end their lives. Patients would have had to request medication from physicians multiple times verbally and in writing, be deemed competent to make the decision, and administer the lethal dose themselves.

Critics had said the measure was sloppily written and contained insufficient protection for vulnerable patients. Objections ranged from the difficulty of assessing how much time a patient has left to the failure to require a mental health screening by a specialist. Others opposed the initiative for moral reasons, or because it was counter to the fundamental do-no-harm ethos that governs physicians.

The legislation would have required the state Department of Public Health to write rules by March 20, 2013, to require physicians to report when the drug was dispensed, file copies of prescriptions, and help facilitate the collection of other statistical information.

Statistics kept by Oregon and Washington are frequently cited by proponents as evidence that the law is not being abused and poses no large-scale societal threat. Those detailed statistics show that the fatal doses of medication are requested by a small number of patients and used by even fewer.

Oregon’s law was mired in legal challenges for several years, but since 1997 when it was enacted, 935 people have requested prescriptions, and 596 have used them to end their lives. In 2011 in Oregon, most of the 71 people who used the medication were white, well-educated, and suffering from cancer.

In Washington last year, 103 people requested the prescriptions, with 70 using them and 19 dying without taking the drugs. Of those who requested prescriptions and died, nearly half were married, three-quarters had some college education, and the overwhelming majority had cancer.

The rate of suicide in the United States rose sharply during the first few years since the start of the recession, a new analysis has found.   

In the report, which appeared Sunday on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal, researchers found that the rate between 2008 and 2010 increased four times faster than it did in the eight years before the recession. The rate had been increasing by an average of 0.12 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 through 2007. In 2008, the rate began increasing by an average of 0.51 deaths per 100,000 people a year. Without the increase in the rate, the total deaths from suicide each year in the United States would have been lower by about 1,500, the study said.        

The finding was not unexpected. Suicide rates often spike during economic downturns, and recent studies of rates in Greece, Spain and Italy have found similar trends. The new study is the first to analyze the rate of change in the United States state by state, using suicide and unemployment data through 2010.        

“The magnitude of these effects is slightly larger than for those previously estimated in the United States,” the authors wrote.  That might mean that this economic downturn has been harder on mental health than previous ones, the authors concluded.        

The research team linked the suicide rate to unemployment, using numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.        

Every rise of 1 percent in unemployment was accompanied by an increase in the suicide rate of roughly 1 percent, it found. A similar correlation has been found in some European countries since the recession.        

The analysis found that the link between unemployment and suicide was about the same in all regions of the country.        

The study was conducted by Aaron Reeves of the University of Cambridge and Sanjay Basu of Stanford, and included researchers from the University of Bristol, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of Hong Kong.