September is World Suicide Prevention Month and over fifty percent of people know someone that has taken their own life.

Dr Rebecca Sanford is a professor at TRU that specializes in suicide and mental health.

While appearing on the NL Morning News, the doctor said people don’t always reach out for help and that’s when their support network needs to do the reaching out. “I think we put so much emphasis on the person who’s experiencing thoughts of suicide and we don’t talk enough about their friends and family members and coworkers and people in their world who perhaps could make a difference by having, again, that courageous conversation, asking someone how they’re doing.”

Sanford said normalizing the conversation so the person knows it’s safe to say they need some help can literally be the difference between life and death.

“I might use language like, you know given everything that you’ve had going on lately, I know you’re under a lot of pressure. I’m really concerned about you and I’m wondering if you’ve been thinking about suicide at all.”

“Just kind of normalizing it and making it part of the conversation so that that person knows it’s safe to say, Ya you know what? Things aren’t going so well and I have been having these thoughts and I’m kind of scared and I need some help.”