EUGENE, Ore. — September is national suicide prevention awareness month. We sat down with members in the community to learn more about the stigma some face when struggling with mental health needs.
This is a conversation each interviewee tells us needs to be ongoing. Each of their messages saying the same thing, to call the 9-8-8 headline if you or someone you know is struggling.
Jason Davis with Lane County Public Health said, “What we know by the trends is that here in Lane County, we average about 100 to 110 suicides per year. In a decade, that’s over a thousand people. We only have 400,000 people in our whole county. That’s a significant percentage. Helping people understand that talking about it, normalizing it, normalizing help seeking and understanding what resources are out there can save a life.”…