“I used to be drowning. I couldn’t keep above water,” stated Hines, as he described how the compression fractures he suffered within the fall left him unable to stroll throughout his restoration interval.
Hines, now 42, instructed attendees on the inaugural South Florida Suicide Awareness Conference {that a} sea lion stored him afloat within the bay earlier than Coast Guard officers introduced him to shore.
“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional,” Hines stated on the March 4 convention.
As a toddler, Hines lived in crack-laden motels about San Francisco’s infamous Tenderloin neighborhood, he stated, till his organic dad and mom did him a “stable” and put him up for adoption. By age 17, the muscular, 5-foot-7-inch, highschool wrestler was unable to silence the ache of dwelling with bipolar dysfunction. Hines stated this led him to the Golden Gate bridge on September 25, 2000, the place he tried to finish his life.
“People invalidate our ache as a result of they can’t see it,” Hines, a suicide prevention speaker who has shared his story at 1000’s of colleges worldwide, instructed the viewers. “You are right here since you are doing work to vary lives.”
In the 20 years since Hines’ leap, the suicide charge within the United States has sharply elevated, with an unsettling rise in suicide deaths amongst youth, significantly teenage women.
Some theories about why younger persons are extra usually committing suicide middle on the emergence of social media and the way it makes the social pressures of college and peer teams inescapable even at residence. Other theories give attention to spiking stress ranges in teenagers and their dad and mom. Awareness of suicidal and self-harming behaviors amongst youth might have performed a task within the rise within the suicide charge as properly.
The pattern has been mirrored in Florida, the place the suicide charge amongst 15-19 12 months olds elevated by greater than 40 p.c between 2011 and 2020.
“Teens at present are much less in a position to escape destructive communication and bullying as a result of it occurs on-line and over textual content messaging,” psychiatrist and University of Texas Southwestern professor Betsy Kennard wrote. “Teen use of expertise has skyrocketed in the identical timeframe because the spike in social media which doesn’t point out causation, however some speculate that it might play a task.”
At the South Florida convention, Kathryn Coppola, the manager director of the Miami-Dade chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), cited a nationwide 2021 survey of greater than 17,000 highschool college students, which highlights “some very alarming trends.”
“One out of 10 highschool college students within the U.S. tried suicide a number of occasions,” Coppola stated. “So, you all know somebody.”
Billed as “Honest Talk about Suicide and Messages of Hope,” the convention included psychiatrists, psychologists, pastors, and different psychological well being advocates, who famous that the suicide charge amongst Black youth ages 10 – 24 has elevated 36.6 p.c since 2018. Among LGBTQ youth, 45 p.c have thought-about suicide, a 2022 Trevor Project survey pamphlet stated.
The occasion was sponsored by the NAMI Miami-Dade chapter, Thriving Mind of South Florida, the State of Florida, and the Florida Department of Children and Families. It was hosted on the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables.
According to NAMI, native packages underway embrace peer counseling, an “Ending the Silence” program geared toward Miami space center and excessive faculties, and an initiative to stop suicide in Black communities.
In 2020, 45,979 folks died by suicide within the U.S., leading to one loss of life each 11 minutes, in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the second main reason for loss of life for younger folks ages 15 to 24, the CDC says.
In Miami-Dade County, 215 individuals died by suicide in 2020, about seven p.c of Florida suicides that 12 months, in response to the Florida Department of Health statistics.
Hines says that combating despair alone shouldn’t be the reply.
“There are two strategies I take advantage of to remain proper right here,” Hines tells New Times. “The very first thing I do is look within the mirror and inform myself that my ideas shouldn’t have to grow to be my actions. The second factor I do is flip to anybody keen to pay attention and say I need assistance now.
“Ask for assist, and if you don’t get it, flip to the following individual, after which the following individual, till you do,” Hines says. “You do matter.”
According to NAMI, suicide warning indicators embrace:
– Social isolation
– Unexplained anger or aggression
– Taking pointless dangers
– Neglecting private look
– History of psychological sickness
If you might be having ideas of suicide, name or textual content 988 to succeed in the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to http://988lifeline.org.