Several UALR faculty, staff, and students have participated in events associated with Suicide Prevention Week at UALR, which began Sept. 8, with the goal of lifting taboos about a subject many find difficult to talk about.

The statistics are startling.

Suicide is among the top three leading causes of death for those ages 15 to 24, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and is the number 10 killer of people in the U.S.

Amy Muse, a mental health counselor in the UALR Counseling Services Office, said college-age students are particularly vulnerable to suicide because they succumb to the belief they should be equipped to handle the normal stressors associated with becoming an adult.

“For college-age people, it’s an exciting time at first, and then it is an extremely stressful time,” she said. “I call it the quarter-life crisis.”

Muse said young adults often have over-inflated confidence they can do it all and that becoming a mature person should be a “super easy” skill to achieve.

“I really believe … it’s a combination of being spread too thin or having significant health problems or untreated mental health issues,” she said. “And students don’t want to burden anybody.”

That is why it is important students understand they are not alone, that they are not a burden. “There is no problem too big we cannot solve together,” said Muse.

Muse said the mission behind Suicide Prevention Week is to de-stigmatize mental health issues that sometimes lead to suicide and to encourage students to seek help and talk about the pain they are experiencing.

It is also behind the reason this year’s slogan for Suicide Prevention Week is “Come Talk to Me.”

“You have to talk about it, you have to ask the blunt question, ‘are you going to kill yourself?’,” Muse said. “The more you talk about it, the more you can do.”

Remaining on the schedule for Suicide Prevention Week is tonight’s Memorial Vigil, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Diamond Café and Mall Area, as well as the upcoming Gallery of Hope Artistic Expression Contest, in which students’ artwork may be viewed from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday in the upper concourse of the Donaghey Student Center.

An award reception with food will be offered from noon until 3 p.m. on Friday.

For more information about suicide prevention, contact UALR Counseling Services at 501.569.3185 or visit ualr.edu/personalcounseling. For on-campus emergencies, contact the UALR Department of Public Safety at 501.569.3400.