We can all help prevent suicide.

Suicide is a complex social and health crisis that impacts every community on the planet. In September, during Suicide Prevention Month, we're working to disrupt the belief that struggling with mental health makes you a burden.

This month we invite you to help us create honest and hopeful conversations, explore what it looks like to support people through their darkest moments, and invest in the tools and resources that make healing possible.

Your truth, your fears, your pain, and your doubts do not make you a burden—they make you human. So we’re here to remind you: You are not a burden.

Globally, 1 in 100 deaths is a suicide. We need to remind people they are not a burden. Learn More

Understanding the Numbers

  • 700,000 people die by suicide each year.
  • Globally, 1 in 100 deaths is a suicide.
  • In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25 percent. Young people are one of the groups most affected.
  • Over the last decade, suicide rates in the US have increased most for people of color in these groups: 43 percent for Black people, 41 percent for Indigenous people, and 27 percent for Latine/Hispanic people.
  • Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 14-18-year-olds in the US.
  • 45 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. Nearly 1 in 5 transgender and nonbinary youth attempted suicide and LGBTQ youth of color reported higher rates than their white peers.

Understanding Suicide

  • No one takes their life for a single reason. Life stresses, combined with known risk factors, such as childhood trauma, substance use, or even chronic physical pain can contribute to someone taking their life.
  • Suicide is related to brain functions that affect decision-making and behavioral control, making it difficult for people to find positive solutions.
  • 90 percent of people who die by suicide have an underlying—and potentially treatable—mental health condition.
  • Depression, bipolar disorder, and substance use are strongly linked to suicidal thinking and behavior.

Why we need to remind people
they are not a burden.

    The You Are Not A Burden campaign is centered around the idea that we can disrupt a false belief that often drives those who experience suicidal thoughts to action. As Dr. Thomas Joiner’s Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicidal Behavior describes, “A person who is suicidal usually experiences a combination of feelings that they don’t belong and that their life or existence burdens others. There is also a conclusion that these feelings represent a permanent situation; that this is how things are going to be, going forward.” The perceived burdensomeness one feels is also identified as the driver of a lethal outcome when the “desire for death meets the capability to die.”
    Capability means things like fearlessness of death, fearlessness of pain, pain tolerance, and knowledge and familiarity with things that may be used in a lethal suicide attempt. When those three processes come together in the same individual, that’s when the model predicts a lethal outcome.
    This helps to explain why a large number of people in any given year will think about suicide (estimated at 12 million in the US) or even make a plan (estimated at 1.2 million in the US), but a smaller group (45,979 in the US in 2020) will actually die by suicide.
    With suicide rates rising over the past 20 years, we’ll continue to offer action steps you can take to prevent suicide, help limit lethal means, reach those in your community, and help share this important message.

How you can help

Help us raise money for Treatment & Recovery

Help us raise money for Treatment & Recovery

Most people who die by suicide had a diagnosable mental health condition. Become a fundraiser or donate to the campaign to help us raise $250,000 for Treatment and Recovery Scholarships.

Donate or Fundraise Stream for TWLOHA

Purchase a Suicide Prevention Pack

Purchase a Suicide Prevention Pack

Each pack gives you the tools to check in with those you love, start conversations that challenge stigma, share professional resources, and know what mental health options exist. By wearing the campaign merch, you can be a visible reminder of hope for those struggling and the work we all can do to help prevent suicide.

Shop the collection

Stay Connected

Stay Connected

We’ll let you know about everything happening throughout the campaign like action steps to take, live conversations to watch, and content to share. You can sign up for emails or, for those in the US or Canada, you can opt to receive text messages by texting WSPD to (321) 204-0578.

Email Updates Text Updates

Share the Campaign

Share the Campaign

To help bring this year’s campaign to every corner of the globe (and internet), we’ve built a sharing center to help you spread this life-saving message. It includes a response card, profile pictures, banners, and other social media images to use. If and when you post, tag @TWLOHA on Twitter and Instagram and use #NotABurden so we can see, like, and maybe even repost it!

Campaign Downloads

Tune In

Tune In

Raising $250,000 will make it possible to sponsor 3,600 counseling and group therapy sessions, and support 45,000 people in finding local mental health resources.

Why these counseling scholarships matter:

I am just starting out in the young adult world. Trying to prioritize my mental health while trying to figure out what this ‘life thing’ is has presented to be exceptionally difficult. TWLOHA helped me be able to take a breath and know I am able to get the help I need on the hard days.

I have been in a spiraling depression for over two years. I have had to take time off, as well as a medical leave, due to my condition. I’ve been on the desperate edge of suicide for months now, desperate for escape and relief. Thank you to the T&R Scholarship, I have not had the added financial burden of worrying about covering my copays for my weekly therapy sessions. These sessions have been my fuel to keep living and keep fighting for hope. If it was not for my therapist and the help of TWLOHA, I don’t know where I would be.

The TWLOHA Treatment & Recovery Scholarship has changed the trajectory of my life forever. I didn’t know that Hope was possible, but through the scholarship I have been able to go to counseling and have really connected with my counselor. And for the first time in my life I am seeing progress and hope instead of trauma and numbness. I am forever thankful for this organization and one of these days I want to be able to give back to help others that are in my situation. Nothing has felt more hopeless than knowing you desperately need help, really want it, but can’t afford it. Thank you for being such a significant part of my healing journey!

I cannot express my gratitude about this scholarship. It has been a true god-send to me. I have been able to truly work out lots of issues and get a real start on my progress to mental stability. Your organization has truly been awesome. I am grateful for all that you do. In this state, there is little support for mental health. Few resources. This is a shining light in the darkness. Thank you for your support from the bottom of my heart.

I hadn't been able to start therapy due to a lack of being able to afford it. Your scholarship helped me get back on track to taking care of my mental health needs and it's caused me to have healthier relationships, including with myself. Due to your scholarship, after 15 years of neglect I finally feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

I am so grateful that your organization has helped me so much. I am so humbled. I wish I could help out after I have got back on my own feet. You have truly been a great blessing in my life. Thank you.

I want you to know that your assistance literally saved my life. Through therapy I have addressed childhood trauma and codependency issues. I know my worth and that I was created to do great things. This is all because of the support I received from TWLOHA. I know there is no destination with therapy, it’s truly a journey, but today I am a different woman than I was a year ago. I am incredibly thankful for all the support I have received.

Campaign Partners

Thank you to these community leaders and companies for supporting this campaign:

If your company, organization, or school is interested in partnering with TWLOHA for Suicide Prevention Month, send us an email at [email protected] and tell us your idea!

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