Every year 894,950 people attempt suicide. Do you know why the symbol used by Project Semicolon represents hope for dealing with suicide and mental illness?

1. Project Semicolon
Promotes Suicide
Prevention & Mental
Health Awareness

2. Suicide, tragically, is all too
common. Not only is it a sign that
someone’s suffering was so intense
they felt it necessary to end their
life, but it leaves in its wake a trail of
additional victims: friends, family,
loved ones, and entire
communities.

3. Project semicolon
Every year 894,950 people attempt
suicide. Do you know why the
symbol used by Project
Semicolon represents hope for
dealing with suicide and mental
illness?

4. Project Semicolon is a nonprofit
dedicated to the prevention of
suicide. Founded in 2013, the
organization has helped some 5.2
million and believes, according to
their website, “suicide is generally
preventable” and “is the collective
responsibility of each and every
person on the planet.”

5. Amy Bleuel, the creator of
Project Semicolon, told The
Mighty in 2015. She added,
“We see it as you are the
author and your life is the
sentence. You’re choosing to
keep going.”

6. Amy used the semicolon
symbol as a way to honor her
father who died from suicide
and as a way to help others
dealing with depression and
mental illness find hope.

7. Chris Cornell, one of the original creators of the rock
genre “Seattle Grunge” and front-man for the iconic
band Soundgarden, as well as Audioslave.
“My name is Chester. I had the great privilege of being
a friend of Chris and invited to be a member of his
family,” Chester Bennington told the mourners at
Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Just two months later,
in July, Bennington took his own life at his home in Los
Angeles.
2017 has
brought two
high-profile
suicides

8. The show is about a suicide victim, a
young woman, who left recordings for a
boy she had a crush on, with 13 reasons
why she took her own life.
Television shows and films about mental
illness are not new, but they can be a
valuable tool that raises awareness
around the issue of suicide.
Controversial
series launched
this year called
“13 Reasons
Why.”

9. Emory University in Atlanta,
Georgia puts into perspective
the disconcerting statistics
on suicide. These include
some of the following:
The Statistics of
Suicide

10. SUICIDE STATS
• Every year 34,598 people die from suicide, an
average of 94 people a day
• Across all age groups, suicide is the 11th leading
cause of preventable death
• A staggering 894,950 people attempt suicide each
year, which is one person every 38 seconds
• On average, emergency rooms across the country
see nearly 400,000 patients a year for self-inflicted
injuries
• College campuses deal with an average of 1,000
suicides annually
• Among young adults aged 15 to 24, suicide is the
third-leading cause of preventable death
• Among people aged 25 to 34, suicide is the
second-leading cause of preventable death

11. Why Do People
Become
Suicidal?
Number of factors play into
why a person might become
suicidal:
•Addiction to alcohol
•Drugs to depression
•Bipolar disorders
•Eating disorders, such as
anorexia.

12. Why Do People
Become
Suicidal?
Complicating matters is the fact that a
vast majority of people living with
mental illness use alcohol and drugs to
self-medicate, which can lead to
addiction and magnify whatever mental
disorder is plaguing them. This is known
as a dual diagnosis or a co-occurring
disorder.

13. Managing
Addiction and
Mental Illness
Both mental illness and addiction are
treatable conditions that people can
recover from.
Each illness though, must first be
diagnosed, which isn’t always a simple
matter of seeing a family physician
before the conditions can be treated
individually.

14. Project Semicolon
Project Semicolon notes that 75
percent of suicide victims share their
plans ahead of time.
Therefore, it’s incumbent on friends,
family, educators and everyone to
reach out to those they believe
might be struggling. Even small
actions can make the difference to
saving a person’s life.

15. Sadly, 31-year-old Amy
Bleuel, Project Semicolon’s
founder, lost her more than
20-year fight with mental
illness and took her own life
earlier this year. Michael
Shields, CEO of the project,
had this to say:

16. “Today, although sad, we’re
reminded of the reason why Project
Semicolon exists. Suicide has the
ability to strike at the heart of the
very cause aims to eliminate it.
Today we lost a giant and from this
day on, together, we’ll carry her
legacy forward.”

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