Here you can find out:

• What suicide is
• What you can do if you, or someone you know, is having suicidal thoughts

What Is Suicide?

Suicide is when a person deliberately takes their own life. Suicidal feelings can affect anyone, and if discovered early enough, they can be stopped and the suicide prevented. Most of the time people don’t actually want to die, but they feel that it is their only option.

Reasons that people attempt suicide can include:

• Depression
• An upsetting and/or traumatic event
• Drug use
• Heavy alcohol use
• Combination of the above.

These are all things that can be sorted out before it’s too late.

What should I do if I'm having suicidal thoughts?

Finding someone to talk to about your feelings and problems is really important.

If you'd rather not talk to someone you know then you could talk to a counsellor or call a helpline such as Breathing Space or the Samaritans.

• Counselling may help if you’ve had to go through an upsetting event, or if you are bereaved or confused after someone you know has either completed or attempted suicide.
• You should be able to access counselling through your GP, college, university or school, if you would rather speak to someone face to face.
• Breathing Space is there to speak to you if you are feeling sad or down, or need to talk about issues and problems in your life. You can call them free on  0800 83 85 87 (Monday to Thursday 6pm - 2am, Friday 6pm through to Monday 6am).
• Samaritans provide emotional support, and are available 24 hours a day. You can call them on  08457 90 90 90.

There are also lots of support groups and projects to help you with problem drug and alcohol use. Breathing Space and ChildLine can give you information about support groups near you.

I Think My Friend Is Feeling Suicidal

If you're worried here is a few things you could do:

• Try and be there for your friend, but also encourage them to talk to someone else like a doctor, counsellor, family member, youth worker or helpline. PAPYRUS, a suicide research organisation, says that talking about suicidal feelings helps, and doesn’t make the suicide more likely.
• Don't tell them you will keep it a secret. This could be very stressful for you- get some expert help from some of the organisations listed here.
• You could try taking action by removing anything obvious that they could use to complete suicide.