It’s not like everyone wears a sign that says, “I lost a loved one to suicide.” They are at the supermarket, school, work, gas station; they’re everywhere. And there are more of them than one might think. For every one person who takes their own life, there are several survivors left behind. Parents, children, spouses, siblings, relatives, friends, co-workers, etc are left behind to deal with the aftermath. Some survivors want to handle it themselves privately, and that’s okay for them. But what about the survivors who want and/or need some kind of help? Who helps them?
There are a lot of helpful organizations out there. Friends for Survival Inc located in Sacramento CA, American Association of Suicidology located in Washington DC, American Suicide Foundation located in New York New York, Heartbeat located in Colorado Springs CO, and Ray of Hope located in Iowa City IA are just a sampling. However not all survivors live in those localities. Though most larger cities have some sort of chapter support group, not all survivors live in large cities either.
As a matter of fact in the state of Virginia alone in 2003 the rural area of Southwestern Virginia suffered the highest suicide rates per 100,000 people at 20.75. The state average was 11 per 100,000 people. The nearest survivor support group is 2 hours away for some and up to 4 hours away for others. Just to put it into perspective nationally, Virginia is ranked 31st and the Mid-Atlantic region has the lowest suicide rate in comparison with, (in order) East North Central, Pacific, and New England regions. While Virginia suffers 11 suicides per 100,000 people, New Mexico has a 19.8 rate closely followed by Montana with 19.3 and New York has the least amount of suicides per 100,000 with a rate of 6.6 and the National average is 10.8. These figures are supplied by The American Association of Suicidology.
Getting back to Southwestern Virginia there is absolutely no help, no programs, no outreach of any kind in this mountainous rural area with a suicide rate of almost double the state average. Something is very wrong with this picture. It’s a shame. Surviving suicide is difficult enough, but having to do it without a support system is something no survivor should have to live with.
For those survivors with internet access www.compassionatefriends.org has an online support group, The Dougy Center, www.dougy.org is for children and teens, The Jason Foundation is for teens, www.nopcas.com or The National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide is for minority communities, The Jed Foundation is committed to reducing the suicide rate of college students, www.save.org or Suicide Awareness Voices of Education sends out a helpful newsletter to survivors and sponsors a survivor conference, www.spanusa.org or Suicide Prevention Action Network works hard to prevent suicide and offers local programs for survivors, OASSIS or The Organization for Attempters & Survivors of Suicide and Interfaith Services is also available, as are www.thelink.org started by a survivor who lost her son, and www.suicidology.org that promotes awareness, education, training and sponsors an annual “Healing After Suicide” conference. These are all wonderful organizations and can be extremely helpful however having a survivor or support group in one’s hometown would be very beneficial to the folks in Southwestern Virginia and other rural communities in this country.
