New CAPS resource aims to prevent unpredictable

Following the publicized death by suicide of at least three IU students and one IU professor since 2000, the IU Counseling and Psychological Services staff has initiated a campus-wide suicide prevention campaign aimed at educating the public on how to recognize depressed students and prevent potential death by suicide victims.\nAbout 32,000 American deaths by suicide occurred during 2002, according to the American Association of Suicidology. Eighty-seven such incidents occur each day -- about one death every 17 minutes -- averaging 11 out of every 100,000 Americans taking their lives each year. \n"CAPS has developed an educational brochure called 'No Where To Turn' and a one-hour program that discusses how someone can respond to a person who might be harboring suicidal thoughts," said Nancy Stockton, CAPS director at the IU Health Center. "We are working with University administrators, faculty, staff, associate professors, residential assistants, advisors and student leaders on an outreach basis so they will know the signs and symptoms of severe depression and suicidal thinking, and they can learn how to listen carefully and where to refer people for help."\nStockton said suicidal ideation often progresses in one of two ways: Feelings of helplessness gradually progress to feelings of despair and a person formulates a death by suicide plan over several days or a several week period, or suicidal behavior is impulsive, especially for young adults and college students, who may be depressed but experience feelings of abandonment, who fail academically or who feel like they are a disappointment to others.\nIntentional self-harm claimed the lives of about 725 Hoosiers during 2003, more than homicide, HIV/AIDS and nutritional deficiencies combined, according to the Indiana Mortality Report. An average of two Hoosier deaths by suicide occur every day statewide. \nKathleen O'Connell, chair of the Indiana State Suicide Prevention Coalition and director of the Behavioral Health and Family Studies Institute at IU-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said prevention of Hoosier death by suicide first appeared statewide in 1997 as a community focus in Allen County. She credited U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher's 2001 booklet "National Strategy for Suicide Prevention" for promoting suicide prevention as a national focus and significant health problem.\n"For a long time, health experts were mostly researching the why and who of committing suicide. It's only been lately they have focused research on how do we prevent it because there are so many factors involved and there is no magic set of solutions to give everybody," O'Connell said. "Suicide is very difficult to talk about because other people don't understand if they haven't been through that situation ... People around (potential death-by-suicide victims) have to recognize there is a problem and help them get help even though it's hard to interfere in other peoples lives." \nO'Connell also said the "ripple effect" of death by suicide is especially problematic for families, friends, colleagues and peers because of the extremely traumatic nature of the suicide. Questions of why, feelings of guilt and increased risk of death by suicide because of emotional distress might affect the victim's surviving social network forever, she said.\nFor every death by suicide, there are at least six survivors, representing about five million Americans throughout the last 25 years, according to the AAS.\nReese Butler, president and founder of the National Hope Line Network, 1-800- SUICIDE (784-2433), said death by suicide is a major national health problem that has reached epidemic proportions because his hotline receives more than 500,000 calls a year -- about six of every 10 involves a psychiatric crisis. He said death by American suicide issues result in more than 650,000 hospital visits a year. \n"If you have hope, you can't be suicidal. Where hopelessness kicks in is when you lose all that you know, like your job or something you regard of value like a spouse," Butler said. "We are hoping as an organization to catch people upstream before they are in a crisis. If somebody is feeling suicidal, it is always better to err on the side of caution than to find out the next day they were serious and they followed through on their threats."\nWarning signs of someone considering suicide often include verbal threats like "you'd be better off without me" or "maybe I won't be around," expressions of hopelessness and helplessness, previous suicide attempts, risk-taking behaviors, personality changes, severe depressed behavior, giving away of prized possessions and lack of interest in future plans, according to the National Mental Health Association.\nStockton said she hopes the "No Where To Turn" campaign educates as many people on campus as possible about the signs and symptoms of death by suicide, which many potential victims emit but many friends and family miss.\n"Some people who are depressed have a fear of treatment that might prevent suicidal feelings or behaviors from developing," she said. "Some help with the counseling process and/or some help with medicine can cause depressed people to feel more like themselves, as well as undergoing some attitudinal and behavioral changes ... Suicide can be viewed as an act of violence against the self. Our society tries to stop other acts of violence like homicides, so why not death by suicide?" \nVisit www.indiana.edu/~caps/ to learn how to play a role in campus community suicide prevention.