Maybe September doesn’t mean much to you besides the start of school and the end of summer. There’s one more thing it stands for though, and it’s a cause very close to my heart. September is National Suicide Prevention Month. A cause we should all be educated on.

I can easily rattle off facts to you, because I am trained in recognizing signs of a suicidal person and what to do to get them the help they need. Depression will affect 20-25% of all Americans over the age of 18 every year. Which means that if I make four friends in college, one of us will be affected by depression. Not only that but suicide is the second leading cause of death for the 10-24 age group, the age group that my friends and I are in. Every year 38,000 Americans die of suicide, which means 4,250 people between the ages of 10-24 die each year from suicide. Should suicide be this big of an epidemic? No, because 90% of the people that die from suicide had a diagnosable psychiatric disorder, a disorder that could have been helped with proper treatment. This is one of the reasons why I believe everyone should be educated in the warning signs of suicide.

So promise me you’ll learn the warning signs. Please know the warning signs forwards and backwards. Here are some of the most known warning signs: expressions of hopelessness and helplessness, previous suicide attempts, personality changes, depression, giving away prized possessions, lack of interest in the future, feeling trapped, withdrawing from loved ones, acting impulsively or recklessly, preforming poorly at work or school and even just seeming sad or depressed most of the time. I know, I listed a lot of signs to look for. But the thing is, even if you know all of the warning signs, you might still not see that someone you love is suicidal.

In the span of my senior year of high school, I talked four friends and one stranger out of suicide. But, I also had one friend that almost succeeded at taking her own life. I didn’t even know that she was suicidal and I still can’t believe that the whole ordeal even happened. In certain ways, I blame myself that she got to that point. I’m trained in helping suicidal people get the correct medical help that they need. I know all the warning signs and most of the statistics. I have reached out to people on many different occasions to make sure that they are doing okay and have helped people that are not doing okay. So every time I think about what happened I always questioned why I didn’t even have a clue that she might attempt to take her own life. And it always comes back to the fact that I never saw her display any of the normal warning signs.

So when you read this article, think about all of the people you love and think about all of the people you interact with on a daily basis. Look for any warning signs, any at all, in these people and reach out if you find one. I wrote this article because I want you to commit at least a few of these warning signs to memory. We’re talking about someone’s life, and you never know who you might save just by asking if they are okay.