On Sep­tem­ber 10, 2023, a 17-year-old boy was prepar­ing to end his life.

His par­ents were go­ing through a painful di­vorce, and he blamed him­self. He had just failed an ex­am and felt like a dis­ap­point­ment. His fam­i­ly was strug­gling fi­nan­cial­ly, and he be­lieved he had on­ly made things worse. To top it off, the girl he se­cret­ly liked had just start­ed dat­ing his best friend.

Over­whelmed by shame and hope­less­ness, he had made a plan.

That Sun­day morn­ing, he heard a men­tal health ad­vo­cate on the ra­dio speak­ing about World Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Day. One sen­tence changed every­thing: “Any­one can be helped. There’s no shame in ask­ing for sup­port.”

A num­ber was giv­en. He wrote it down and reached out.

To­day, that boy is alive and thriv­ing. He plans to study so­cial work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies—to help oth­ers find the light when their world feels dark.

Why this day mat­ters

World Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Day (WSPD) is ob­served an­nu­al­ly on Sep­tem­ber 10. Launched in 2003 by the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion (IASP) and the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), the day aims to:

• Raise aware­ness that sui­cide is pre­ventable

• Re­duce stig­ma around men­tal health

• Ed­u­cate peo­ple to recog­nise warn­ing signs and take ac­tion

• The theme for 2024–2026, “Chang­ing the Nar­ra­tive on Sui­cide,” calls for em­pa­thy, ed­u­ca­tion, and open di­a­logue to re­place si­lence and shame.

The re­al­i­ty

Sui­cide is a glob­al pub­lic health cri­sis:

• Over 720,000 peo­ple die by sui­cide each year

• It is the third lead­ing cause of death among peo­ple aged 15–29

• For every sui­cide, there are an es­ti­mat­ed 20 at­tempts

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, sui­cide rates have risen by 25 per cent in the past eight years—an av­er­age of 93 sui­cides per year (2016–2019), in­creas­ing to 120 per year (2020–2023).

Men ac­count for 83 per cent of sui­cides—high­er than the glob­al av­er­age. The 30–39 age group had the high­est rate (20 per cent), fol­lowed by those 60+ (19 per cent), 50s (17 per cent), 40s (19 per cent), and 20s (14 per cent).

Thir­ty-one ado­les­cents and teens al­so died by sui­cide dur­ing this pe­ri­od, in­clud­ing eight un­der age 15.

What dri­ves sui­cide?

Sui­cide is com­plex and of­ten re­sults from mul­ti­ple over­lap­ping fac­tors:

Men­tal health con­di­tions: de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, bipo­lar dis­or­der, psy­chosis, sub­stance abuse

Per­son­al his­to­ry: trau­ma, pre­vi­ous at­tempts, fam­i­ly his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness

En­vi­ron­men­tal stres­sors: iso­la­tion, pover­ty, un­em­ploy­ment, re­la­tion­ship is­sues, aca­d­e­m­ic pres­sure, dis­crim­i­na­tion

Stig­ma and lack of sup­port: cul­tur­al taboos around men­tal health and lim­it­ed ac­cess to care

High-risk groups in­clude ado­les­cents, el­der­ly men, LGBTQ+ in­di­vid­u­als, and those griev­ing a sui­cide loss.

Warn­ing signs

Sui­ci­dal thoughts are of­ten hid­den, but look out for:

• Talk­ing about death or feel­ing hope­less

• With­draw­ing from loved ones

• Mood swings or numb­ness

• Loss of in­ter­est in dai­ly life

• Risky be­hav­iour or giv­ing away pos­ses­sions

• Sleep, eat­ing, or hy­giene changes

• In­creased sub­stance use

• Take all warn­ing signs se­ri­ous­ly.

We all have a role to play in sui­cide pre­ven­tion:

1. Pro­mote men­tal re­silience

Schools should teach emo­tion­al skills and con­duct men­tal health screen­ings to sup­port at-risk youth.

2. Build safe­ty plans

A safe­ty plan helps a per­son nav­i­gate a cri­sis and in­cludes:

• Emer­gency con­tacts

• Cop­ing strate­gies

• Re­mov­ing harm­ful items.

3. Start re­cov­ery jour­nals

This can en­cour­age more pos­i­tive think­ing pat­terns giv­ing rea­sons to stay alive

4. Cre­ate sup­port net­works

Sim­ple check-ins—texts, calls, vis­its—can be life­sav­ing. Schools, church­es, and work­places should fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty and con­nec­tion.

5. Nor­malise seek­ing help

De­pres­sion lies. It says you’re alone and un­wor­thy. The truth: Help ex­ists, and heal­ing is pos­si­ble.

Sup­port Ser­vices in T&T

• Life­line—645-2800

• Child Line—800-4321

• 800-COPE

• Fam­i­lies in Ac­tion—628-2333

• Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices—724-1010

• www.teen­care.gov.tt

• www.find­care.orgtt

There are over 27 psy­chi­atric clin­ics na­tion­wide. Many health cen­ters are staffed with doc­tors trained un­der the WHO’s mh­GAP pro­gramme to treat men­tal health. All hos­pi­tals are equipped to sup­port those in cri­sis.

The fight against sui­cide doesn’t re­quire per­fect an­swers—just pres­ence, em­pa­thy, and ac­tion.

If some­one you know is strug­gling:

• Reach out and lis­ten

• Avoid judge­ment

• En­cour­age pro­fes­sion­al help

• Help them cre­ate a safe­ty plan

If you are strug­gling:

• You are not alone

• You are not a bur­den

• Help is avail­able—and heal­ing is pos­si­ble.

Call 800-COPE. One step, one day, one life at a time. Let’s walk through this to­geth­er.