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Information on suicide can be a lifesaver

A conference held in Marquette late last week, by all accounts, provided valuable information on suicide prevention and grief counseling.

Held at the Holiday Inn of Marquette, the conference brought together a wide variety of experts in the field. Among them was Barb Smith, founder and facilitator of Saginaw Survivors of Suicide and private grief consultant. She underscores the importance of immediate intervention if someone is believed to be considering suicide.

In terms of the people who survive, grief is an immensely complicated process that can vary from individual to individual. Survivors, she said. must be allowed to feel what they are feeling, at their own pace and in their own way.

“They have to feel what they feel — the anger, the guilt, the blame is unbelievable if you are a survivor of suicide loss,” she said for a Mining Journal story on the issue. “We have to let them feel what they feel because if we tell them what to feel, we’re not going to know what’s in their minds, what’s in their hearts. … When we say things to try and help, sometimes we actually hurt.”

She notes there is no “normal” grief process.

” … It depends on what your life was like before the death, what was the relationship like, what you were like, what was your experience with death … but it depends. So there is not a normal grief, because grief and relationships are individual.”

We applaud the Marquette County Health Department, Dial Help and the U.P. Coalition Network, which teamed up to put on the conference. Suicide is touching more and more people, and with bullying and social media outlets playing roles, increasingly younger victims.

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