Dear Future President,

Suicide has become a major epidemic in the United States in recent years. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, it has become the 10th leading cause of deaths in the United States with 42,773 deaths each year. And although suicide is not a major top leading cause of death, it is the only cause in the top 10 that can be prevented.

Some people feel that there is no reason to help peers with suicidal thoughts. They believe that even if you try to help, they will still do it because they are set on relieving their pain. But the main reason why people don’t help suicidal peers is because they do not know how to help them, so they think they will end up making the situation worse than it already is.

These are all understandable reasons that prevent people from getting involved. It is a valid argument that people do not know how to help people with suicidal thoughts. It can be hard and if the situation is not handled correctly, it could push the person even more to commit suicide.

Although these are good arguments, suicide isn’t a thing that should be taken light-heartedly. Becky shared her story on the website Survivors of Suicide Loss (SOSL). Just two months after she had been married to her husband, her father had committed suicide. He worked in the field of law so he worried a lot. He worried about his parents growing of old age, he worried about his children's’ grades and safety on the roads, he worried about his own problems. Soon all this worrying came to consume him and he became less happy. Becky noticed that he would withdraw himself from activities that he once loved and his laughter became less and less heard. And as a result of this all he committed suicide. Nobody should have to go through the pain of an unhappy life. That is why we need to make an effort to change the high rates of suicide in the United States. People need to be educated. They need to be educated on how to help those with suicidal thoughts; they need to be educated on how to help those left behind if suicidal people cannot be helped. With more education it is likely that we can lower the increasing rate of suicides which, according to the CDC, was 12.6 per every 100,000 people or 113 suicides each day in the year of 2013.

I understand that not everybody will think taking action is necessary even with education, but just think if it were your own loved one struggling to come up with reasons to live. The education provided would definitely help in a situation such as this one as it may result in life instead of death.

In conclusion, educating more people in the United States about how to handle and treat suicidal people would lead to tremendous results in lowering the amount of suicides in the U.S. And as a result of a lower amount of deaths, there would be more smiling faces on Earth to capture moments and make memories. The tiniest bit of help could make all the difference.

Sincerely,

Latsami Sysouvanh

https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

https://www.soslsd.org/story/beckys-story#.WCD6wtArLnA

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicide-datasheet-a.pdf