Each year, approximately 38,000 people commit suicide due to a lack of resources or knowledge of telltale signs, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
On Wednesday night, Project OCEAN, California State University Long Beach’s on-campus emergency out-reach program, hosted an event called “Living Mentally Well with Kevin Hines.” Hines is a suicide survivor who attempted to take his life at age 19.
Hines, who survived the 200-foot jump off Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and is diagnosed with type two bipolar disease, spoke Wednesday night in the Anatol Center at CSULB. He told the audience that people should be better informed and aware of the warning signs.
“If you see signs of someone acting erratically and saying they don’t like this life, ask them if they’ve had thoughts of ending their life,” Hines said. “Say the words. Do you have these thoughts?”
Mifa Kim, a freshman marriage and family therapy master student and graduate peer educator at Project OCEAN, said that the program shows Hine’s documentary about his experience and wanted.
“We share [the documentary] to demonstrate that a lot of people who are suicidal find a physical, permanent solution to a perceived insoluble problem,” Kim said.
Project OCEAN aims to help reduces stigmas associated with mental health and suicides by holding workshops that help teach students and faculty how to support one another in order to prevent suicide.
“We do that by holding different presentations regarding QPR,” David Quiroz, a marriage and family therapy master student and graduate peer educator at Project OCEAN said in reference to Questions, Persuade, and Refer. “Pretty much what it does is instill the skills in our students that participate. How to encourage someone to get help and provide them with resources, how to approach them in a supportive way, and how to recognize the signs.”
Roughly 1,100 college students lose their life to suicide each year, which is the second leading cause of deaths next to car accidents, according to Active Minds, a nonprofit organization that advocates for open conversation regarding mental health. Over 60 percent of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depressive disorder that are often unrecognized and untreated, according University California Berkley research.
Lorena Rodriguez, a social work masters graduate at CSULB, said that having programs and discussions about being open to mental health and suicides not only breaks down social barriers but also encourages people to de-stigmatize the beliefs associated with them.
“It’ll be more socially acceptable to talk about it,” Rodriguez said. “It’ll be easier for students or faculty to sort of process and ask ‘are you okay?’ without ever thinking ‘can I ask this person?’”
