The News and Observer reported earlier this week that the state’s suicide prevention hotline was left out of the General Assembly’s annual budget proposal, which has since passed the House and Senate. According to the article, the hotline fields more than 200 calls daily, and would require over $300,000 annual funding to continue operations, but all that could mean nothing if a resolution is not met by July 1 to save the hotline.
This isn’t the first time suicide prevention and mental health care have taken a backseat in North Carolina. As The News and Observer reported earlier this year, many colleges and universities in the state don’t actually keep track of on-campus suicides. The problem is also present in our prison system, as North Carolina Health News details how a local prison forced a man with various mental health issues to stay in solitary confinement for months at a time. Outrageous stories like these make it evident that our state is not doing all it can be doing to combat suicide.
Our state needs to take this matter much more seriously. Suicide is an epidemic that does not just go away by sweeping it under the rug. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, on average, a North Carolinian takes their own life every six hours, and suicide is the third highest cause of death for North Carolinians between ages 15 to 34.
North Carolina must be more focused on creating, and maintaining, suicide awareness and prevention programs. A neglected, underfunded program in the state is not sufficient and wide-reaching enough to save as many lives as it could.
The first step, of course, has to be saving the state’s Suicide Prevention Lifeline. While there are still other hotlines that those in need can call, the fact is that North Carolina having a hotline prevents traffic backup on the national hotline, and it can give citizens a more local and familiar responder to talk to.
The next step, after protecting the suicide prevention resources we already have, is to create more programs meant to combat ignorance on the subject. Spreading informative material through print and broadcast platforms would increase general public knowledge on the subject. Programs like this would help people better understand the potential signs of suicide contemplation and the appropriate responses.
However, my final, and perhaps most important, suggestion can’t be directly resolved with any state funding or programs — although those can help. No, rather, the task of opening up to, and listening to, one another’s struggles lies collectively on our shoulders. Long has mental health been treated too much as a taboo to willingly discuss. In fact, only in the past decade or two have we actually seen a society slowly try to be more open to discussion about mental health.
Almost everyone, myself included, has been or knows someone who has been affected by the suicide of a loved one. We have to be the ones to keep up on our friends’ and family’s well-being and state of mind. Mental Health America found that about 80 percent of those considering suicide give at least one kind of sign beforehand, such as depression or the consideration of a world without them. While more government-sponsored awareness programs could help more people see the signs, ultimately, it’s up to us to be on the lookout.
This is especially true on a college campus. This kind of environment can be very hard on students and faculty alike, and our campus, like many other campuses, has seen tragedies. The problem is, with almost all of the student body being made up of very young adults, many do not come to NC State with that prior knowledge of what signs to look out for and how to handle the situation. Hotlines and awareness programs could have massive impact both on and off a college campus.
To be fair, this issue is not restricted to North Carolina. Our nation has long had a notorious history of ignoring the seriousness of mental health. But I foresee nothing but disaster if programs like suicide hotlines are not only underfunded, but cut completely. Our state deserves better awareness and prevention programs to combat such a tragic situation, and we must do our part to promote a society more open and caring about the realities of mental health.
