Suicide.

How does this word affect you? Chances are you've encountered this problem in your life, one way or another; whether you told a friend that you were thinking about killing yourself, or maybe a family member of yours took their own life last month. Suicide pops up in the most unnecessary ways at the most infuriating times. One thing I have learned about suicide is that it has no sense of caring. It doesn't care if you just had the worst day of your life or the best one. I also learned that suicide is unexpected, it doesn't come with a warning notice or an alarm, it just shows up unannounced. In a way that is almost like a crazy uncle you haven't seen in 10 years showing up at a family gathering, purely unexpected. Having battled suicidal thoughts for years, one's mind can be easily broken down by relentless negative thinking. Relentless is another good word to describe suicide, it will kick you when you're down and it will kick you while you are up, until you are forced to fall back down again. Even while in treatment in a long term mental health facility, where recovery was occurring, I still thought about suicide everyday.

As stated in the title of this article, I asked the question, "What is QPR?" Question, Persuade, Refer; "Question a person about suicide, Persuade someone to get help and, Refer someone to the appropriate resource" (QPR Institute Training Booklet). While sitting in on several QPR Training sessions hosted in the Evansville, Indiana community, I learned what these sessions were all about. QPR is a technique and guideline used to prevent suicidal people from acting on their thoughts. QPR is also used to train a lot of different groups about the reality of suicide. Some good examples of this would be school teachers, university residents assistants, health/mental health professionals, and much more. QPR is starting to turn up in more and more places everyday, which is needed!

The best part about QPR in my opinion was the section on the "signs of suicidal ideation." Whenever a suicide happens, I often hear people talk about how they never knew what the signs were or they wish they could've prevented it. Well, turns out, 100% of suicides can be prevented, with the proper technique and training. This technique describes the sign in a detailed list, even including brief descriptions of verbiage that may be used by the suicidal person(s). Some of these include withdrawal/isolation, loss of interest in favorite things, giving away prized possessions, etc. I will leave the describing up to the actual program itself.

You can visit the QPR Institute website at: http://www.qprinstitute.com

Please consider taking this training sometime in the near future, the number of suicides are on the rise and its hard to know when the next one will hit close to home.