Any time/place for increased awareness is good for me. Having...

Any time/place for increased awareness is good for me.

Having just worked as part of the psychiatry emergency and acute care teams at a major hospital in Sydney, I've seen first hand many failed/sucessful suicide attempts right in front of me.

The stigma of mental illness and the lack of understanding/identification is still one of the major problems.

That's why I am happy to recommend checking out websites like:
- ReachOut --> http://au.reachout.com
- Beyond Blue --> http://www.beyondblue.org.au
- Headspace --> http://www.headspace.org.au
- Climate TV --> http://www.climate.tv

These are all completely anonymous. They provide information on the dectection, managament, services and support that are available to people in Australia with mental illness, specifically focusing on depression.

Many especially Climate Tv (set up by one of Australias leading psychiatrists Prof. Gavin Andrews), include modules based on cartoon versions of real-life cases that help people destigmatise these illnesses and give you modules to work through which aim to teach people Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy to help when you are feeling low. This is the sort of stuff taught to you when you become a psychiatric inpatient so is well worth a look to prevent you ending up there.

Good luck to those in the struggle - its not easy, but it is beatable.