Always an alternative to self-destruction

I was heartened to read during the week that the number of suicides among some categories of people is down by a few percentage points on last year.

But a statistic, however reassuring, can’t cloud over the grief and heartbreaking loss visited on the families of those who took their lives. Nor should it remotely be seen as a cause for complacency. Maybe more people are now listening, and realise there is always an alternative to self-destruction.

If everyone kept a look-out for friends and relatives they believed to be going through a bad patch, it would help.

It’s good to know that there are people who can genuinely help anyone contemplating suicide. Help is really only ever a phone call away. What seems an unsolvable problem right now can be tackled in all sorts of ways.

Suicide is never the answer. It doesn’t solve anything. Instead it just piles on the pain for loved ones, as well as adding to the long list of victims and gravestones.

Any suicide is one too many. The rescuing of people from that unnecessary, pointless death that devastates the living should be a major priority for the State and a life-enhancing objective for everyone. In the words of an old Jewish proverb (quoted in Schindler’s List): ‘Whoever saves one life saves the world entire’.

John Fitzgerald

Callan

Co Kilkenny