Staying here...

I just attended a talk given by a local psychiatrist on suicide with particular reference to refugees.

I was encouraged to learn that fleeting thoughts of suicide are very common. In a Sheffield uni study as many as 30% of medical students had them in their first year of study.

Also encouraging was his experience that talking about suicidal feelings was never a bad thing - in other words you can't give someone the idea of suicide and talking about feelings and plans helps the person experiencing them to gain some objectivity about them.

I believe that simply being a friend is a very powerful deterrent for some. We must accept that sometimes we cannot love a person enough to heal their wounds, but we do what we can.

On a day when again the tabloid press is making sensationalist headlines it was life affirming to gather with a group of people who care enough to learn how they could reach out to others in desperate situations.