988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

988 offers 24/7 access to trained crisis counselors who can help people experiencing mental health-related distress. That could be: thoughts of suicide, mental health or substance use crisis, or any other kind of emotional distress. People can call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for themselves or if they are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support.

Further Resources

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

American Association of Suicidology

Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities

Kentucky's Website on Suicide Prevention

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Seven County Services, Inc.

Suicide Prevention Resource Center

As many as one third of the people in Kentucky, suffer devastating and long lasting emotional trauma when a family member, friend, co-worker, neighbor or classmate dies as a result of suicide.

This is not just a Kentucky problem, but a national one. Each year nearly 30,000 people in the United States die by suicide. The devastated family and friends they leave behind are known as “survivors.” There are millions of survivors who are trying to cope with this heartbreaking loss.

Survivors often experience a wide range of grief reactions, including some or all of the following:

• Shock is a common immediate reaction.
  You may feel numb or disoriented, and may have trouble concentrating.
• Symptoms of depression, including disturbed sleep, loss of appetite intense sadness, and lack of energy.
• Anger towards the deceased, another family member, a therapist, or yourself.
• Relief, particularly if the suicide followed a long and difficult mental illness.
• Guilt, including thinking, “If only I had.…”

These feelings usually diminish over time, as you develop your ability to cope and begin to heal.

Just as people can die of heart disease or cancer, people can die as a consequence of mental illness. Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death (most often depression or bipolar disorder).

Suicide is almost always complicated, resulting from a combination of painful suffering, desperate hopelessness, and underlying psychiatric illness.

Mental Health Regional Contacts

1. Four Rivers

2. Pennroyal

3. River Valley

4. Life Skills

5. Communicare

6. Seven Counties

7. North Key

8. Comprehend

9, 10. Pathways

11. Mountain

12. Kentucky River

13. Cumberland River

14. Adanta

15. Bluegrass