Two words can be key in helping prevent suicide. That’s what a survivor and psychologist say.
Help and hope are key in survival.
“I felt like I had no help, no hope,” said Bethany Boik. “The hopelessness is what really drowned me.”
Boik is 27 years old but spent much of her life battling mental illness.
Becoming suicidal at the age of 12 after her father was incarcerated, she fell into a deep depression.
Despite having a family history of mental illness and showing signs of withdrawing, she had trouble getting help.
“I really wish someone heard my voice.”
Judy Malinowski is a Psychologist with Ascension Eastwood Clinics.
“If you have that history of feeling somewhat hopeless and helpless, and you add external factors, it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
She says a suicidal person makes on average 20 attempts before actually killing themselves.
That includes abusing drugs and alcohol, physically harming themselves, isolation or other risky behavior.
If someone says they want to kill themselves, believe them.
Malinowski explained, “Sometimes we can become desensitized, someone may say it and we don’t address it because maybe they’ve said it before and nothing has happened it could be the time.”
After the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain this week, it’s shining light on a topic some consider taboo.
Malinowski added, “People do not like to even discuss the issue that people take their own lives.”
“Mental illness does not discriminate, so every single person has the ability to develop a disease that they can’t control,” Boik said.
For Boik, supportive friends, medication and therapy groups helped her survive.
Now, she’s using her experience to mentor others.
If you feel suicidal, she says hope and help is what you need.
“Therapy or medication or other types of treatment, we can do so much now, but you just have to hang in there, just hang in there a little bit longer.”
If you or a love one need help, the Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority is sponsoring the STOP Suicide forum taking place Saturday morning:
Saturday, June 9, 2018 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Grace Community Church
21001 Moross Rd., Detroit, MI 48236
To learn more about Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority, go to: http://www.dwmha.com/
You can also call their hotline at: (800) 630-1044.
