Thrive

Thrive

Suicide prevention, rewritten

There have been three notable crises in the past 100 years...

The HIV epidemic in the late 1900s, the unprecedented rate of car accidents in the 1930s, and today, the incomprehensible rate of loss by suicide.

These three crises produced three solutions: Sex Education, Driver’s Education and Suicide Prevention. Each were created to save lives, but only the first two have been profoundly successful due to one very critical difference in how they were formed.

Both Sex Education and Driver’s Education, as named, focus on the solution; teaching how to safely do each activity. We do not call them “car accident prevention” or “HIV/pregnancy prevention”.

Meanwhile, “Suicide Prevention”, as named, focuses on the very thing we want to stop rather than what we actually wish to experience. While it may seem trivial, this matters because we create what we fixate on, even when we’re trying to prevent the very thing we’re fixated on.

As a result, more than 50,000 lives in just the US alone were lost to suicide in 2023, more than any year on record. Our “solution” has gone unchanged for over 25 years. It’s still focused on stopping suicide in the moment of crisis, not realizing that the most effective way to reduce the risk of suicide is by teaching how to safely and effectively live.

Or, in other words, "Thrive Education".

Suicide prevention, rewritten.