Suicide awareness is a proactive effort to raise awareness around suicidal behaviors. It is focused on reducing social stigmas and ambiguity by bringing attention to suicide statistically and sociologically, and by encouraging positive dialogue and engagement to prevent suicide. Suicide awareness is linked to suicide prevention as both address suicide education and the dissemination of information to ultimately decrease the rate of suicide. Awareness is the first stage that can ease the need for prevention. Awareness signifies a fundamental consciousness of the threat, while prevention focuses on stopping the act. Suicide awareness is not a medical engagement but a combination of medical, social, emotional and financial counseling. Suicide awareness in adolescents focuses on the age group between 10–24 years, beginning with the onset of puberty.
Stigma and ambiguity
Stigmas are negative impacts that society can often attribute to the suicidal condition and which can hinder and prevent positive engagement with those demonstrating suicidal behavior. It can be experienced as a self-stigma or cultural, public stigma. Self-stigma is the adverse effect of internalized prejudice, manifesting in reduced self-esteem, decreased self-efficacy, and a feeling of "why try" or self-deprecation (undervaluing any attempts to get a job, be social, etc., because of lack of self-worth).
Stigma can be experienced not only by those facing suicidal thoughts but also by those directly and indirectly affected, such as friends and family members. Public stigma is experienced by prejudice and discrimination through public misuse of stereotypes associated with suicide. Stigma can create a detrimental barrier for some seeking help. Research has consistently illustrated the physical link between suicide and mental illness. However, ignorance and outdated beliefs can sometimes lead to these disorders being mislabeled as a weakness or a lack of willpower. Stigma can prevent survivors of suicide attempts and those affected by suicide deaths from reaching out for support from professionals and advocates to make positive changes.
Historical stigma
Historically, suicide has not always been considered a societal taboo. It is critical to understand the historical context in order to raise awareness of suicide's impact on our current culture. Suicide was embraced as a philosophical escape by the followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus when life's happiness seemed lost. It has been glorified in self-immolation as an act of martyrdom as in the case of Thích Quảng Đức who burned himself to death in protest of South Vietnam’s religious policy. Assisted suicide as a release from suffering can be traced back to ancient Roman society. In Jewish culture, there is a reverence for the mass suicide at Masada in the face of attack by the Roman Empire, showing how suicide has sometimes had a contradictory relationship with established religion. This indicates a tension between the presentation of suicide in this historical context, and its associations in our current society with personal anguish.
Today, suicide is generally perceived as an act of despair or hopelessness, or a criminal act of terrorism (suicide attack). This negative backdrop was seen in Colonial America, where suicides were considered criminal and brought to trial, even if mental illness had been present. In Roman Catholicism suicide is seen as a sinful act, with religious burial prohibited until 1983, when the Catholic Church altered the canon law to allow funerals and burials within the church of those who died by suicide. Today, many current societies and religious traditions condemn suicide, especially in Western culture. Public consideration of suicide in our culture is further complicated by society's struggle to rationalize such cult events as the Heaven's Gate mass suicide. In light of these mixed historical messages, it can be confusing for youth presented with an academic and historical profile for suicide. The ambiguity of accepted suicide and suicidal behavior definitions impedes progress with its utilization of variable terminology.