Problems lead to isolation. Isolation leads to depression. And finally, this can lead to suicidality — the end result. Once it is done, it cannot be undone.

This mindset, this condition — its roots are deep in the problems one lives in. It may be just one considerably detrimental problem, or it may be many small problems that add up, weigh a person down and bring them to their knees. Whichever it is, often people feel that these problems they have are singular and that no one else is dealing with the crisis they are in. And so, this leads to isolation. For some people, it ends there; but unfortunately, that is not always the case. Isolation is the most prevalent and deciding factor in the onset of depression in a person, and so quite often this depression becomes despondency.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, every year, almost 45,000 Americans commit suicide. For every 100,000 people here in the U.S., approximately 13 die because of suicide. Multiply that after learning that for every suicide, 25 people attempt, and you find that just about one-third of all Americans commit or attempt suicide.
Last year in the Freedom Area School District, 23 students were at high risk of suicide.

There are many signs that can show that a person is suicidal. Some are the obvious: the person begins harming themselves or they feel hopeless. Others may not be so obvious: they may isolate themselves and avoid social encounters. Two red flags that someone may be suicidal or depressed is when they lose interest in their favorite activities and hobbies — “nothing matters,” they might say; and they may have sudden mood changes from sadness to happiness: they may be trying to hide their depression or trying to keep the people around them from worrying.

How can we stop all of this? The answer is not, “Prevent people from killing themselves.” The answer is not, “Put them in therapy.” And the answer is most certainly not, “Put them in a hospital, keep them there, and wait for them to recover.” Like a weed, depression grows in the mind and takes over one’s life. But like a weed, if you were to pull its roots from the ground, it cannot grow back. This is the answer. If you preclude the problems in a person’s life, if you take away, remove or at least in some way mitigate the issues, problems, worries, anxieties and fears a person has, you can reduce that person’s depression level remarkably.

No amount of therapy, confidence, medication, hospitalization or any other form of distraction from what one is feeling is going to completely rid someone of depression. It may lessen it, but not entirely.
The only true way to help prevent a person from commiting suicide is to help them solve their problems, or find a way to minimize those problems to as small of a degree as possible. The answer lies in the core, in the heart of the cause of suicide.

Eliminate the core, and it is stopped.

There are some people who feel that to talk to someone about their problems may be burdensome to the person they tell; This may seem like a valid reason not to talk to someone, but it absolutely is not. Reaching out is completely okay, and one may not realize this, but if a person were to commit suicide, and the people who care about this person — even the people this person does not realize care — would most likely be devastated by the thought that they could have helped this person; maybe it would have pained these people to know that someone they cared about was suicidal, but this would be nothing to the pain they would feel after losing someone to suicide, to self-inflicted death.

If you are suicidal, or there is someone you know that is suicidal, there are multiple hotlines you can contact. For one, there is 211, a local resources organization that also helps people who are suicidal. You can visit their website, 211.org, or you can call 211, similarly to how you might call 911. Another is National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; you can visit their website, suicidepreventionlifeline.org, or you can call them at 1-800-273-8255.

As mentioned above, isolation is the most prevalent factor of depression, often leading to suicidality. However, even if a person thinks that they are alone, they are not. There is someone in the world that can at least relate in part to the person. Even though — and no one can say this is untrue — no one knows exactly what a person is going through or what a person is feeling, there is someone that can relate and can help that person.

For those of you who are suicidal and are reading this, you must understand that before things get better, it is quite often that things will get worse. But you must, you must, learn to continue, and learn to have patience for the time when things will be better; because things will get better. You may not believe it. You may believe things will never get better. In fact, it is very probable that many of you reading this that are suicidal do not believe the problems in your life will ever be resolved. But know this: There are many today that were once suicidal; that had problems that seemed impossible to find a solution to; that believed there was nothing they could do to fix their lives; and that the only way to stop all of it, the only way to fix everything, the only way to find happiness and peace, was to take their own lives. But somehow, they held out. How? It was this little spark of hope still within them, despite everything. You may not admit it, but somewhere in you there is some form of hope, some part of you that wants to hope things will get better. It is simply a natural characteristic of the human psyche. These people found help and ascended from their problems. Though they may not be happy everyday of their lives, the weeds in their minds have been pulled, and they are content. These are the people that still had hope, the ones that knew things would get better. They can testify.

For they are still alive today.