New figures have revealed that police are being called to more than one suicide attempt or threat every hour.

News Limited reports that Freedom Of Information figures show that nearly 12,000 calls were responded to by police last year.

NEED HELP?

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467

Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800

MensLine Australia: 1300 78 99 78

Headspace (Non-crises youth support): 1800 650 890

NEIL MITCHELL PROGRAM CREATES AWARENESS:

PLAY AUDIO: The Neil Mitchell Suicide Forum

The commercial-free segment includes Neil Mitchell hosting discussion between Michael Carr Gregg, Adolescant Pyschologist, Professor Pat McGorry, Executive Director of Orygen Youth Health and Tom Harkin, Youth Worker with the Reach Foundation.

PLAY AUDIO: John Mendoza, Associate Professor at the University of NSW Brain and Mind Institute

Professor Mendoza says suicide stats are being under-reported by around 30%. "I don't believe we are doing anywhere near enough to tackle the issue of suicide."

How to provide mental health first aid to someone who is suicidal:

http://www.mhfa.com.au/cms/mental-health-first-aid-guidelines-project

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http://www.mhfa.com.au/cms/

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PLAY: Neil Mitchell on why he's tackling suicide today

PUBLIC TESTIMONIES:

CASE 1: "I notice that 3AW responsibly includes on reports of possible suicides note such as: 3AW Radio would like to remind people in desperate situations that help is ALWAYS available with Lifeline contact details.

I have once tried to call Lifeline. It was following the death of my best friend in 2008, who died from a fall at my apartment while I was sleeping inside. In the weeks following my friend's death my days were consumed with feeling pain of losing my friend and also guilt that I was unable to save her. Nights were filled with recurring dreams of awaking to tragedy. The paramedics that attended on the night of the death were wonderful (the kindness of the female paramedic that sat with me will never be forgotten). Before leaving, the paramedics suggested that I should have some counselling. I think it was one of the attending police that left the phone number for Lifeline. I had the support of family and friends but did not want or feel that I deserved the attention. Ending my own life crossed my mind. Mainly I wondered if I would ever feel "normal" again, ever sleep without waking in terror. One night I found the phone number for Lifeline and called ... and waited on hold. A whole hour passed waiting on hold. While on hold I thought of how many others must be in need of help. I hung up figuring that other people probably have more serious concerns.

I was not in a serious or desperate situation. I fear for those who call Lifeline and are in a desperate situation. I have also spoken to others who tell me they have faced similar delays when calling Lifeline and also hung up. The long wait time to speak to a Lifeline counsellor gives the impression that the service is not coping with demand. I understand that many people who are depressed and need help don't feel they are deserving of it. For this reason I think it is important that services such as Lifeline be provided resources so that they can answer calls in reasonable time, even if only to inform expected wait time.

When my work colleague insisted I attend some counselling, I was told my issues were common symptom of post traumatic stress disorder. I was uncomfortable being told I have a "mental illness". I think the term mental illness is a badge that doesn't help the stigma of mental illness. Many people have, have had or will have a mental illness at some stage in life, though it's much harder to talk about than a common ailment such as a common cold. Mental illness seems to fit in the unspoken territory along with sexually transmitted infections (STIs). But you don't need to experience the fun part associated with STIs to have a mental illness. Lack of understanding of mental illness means many of us imagine people in asylums in straightjackets but people don't need to be insane to have a mental illness, it can be just a minor ailment which heals in time, like a common cold. Anything that can be done to help understanding of metal illness is a good thing. 

Andrea Rowe, Safety & Risk Advisor, Safety Action Pty Ltd"

CASE 2: "I was 30 in 1992 when I was first diagnosed with depression. It was PND. My son was 7 weeks old. I cried. All day. Every day. Mum and dad lived in Melbourne, I was in Mt Gambier. My MIL had passed away. My baby had arrived 7 weeks early. I'd been at work the day before he was born. I was sent to a support group that didn't exist anymore because the girl that ran it was back in hospital. I did thinks to make my life a little more manageable but nothing to treat the depression.

Baby number 2 arrived in 1994 and I survived. All good. Bonded really well. No signs of PND. I went back to work while my husband stayed at home. Fast forward until 1998. Marriage had broken down, started at new job, the day i moved out, had the kids part time, head down, tail up. No time to think about anything. I was too busy. Then I fell in love. Only he didn't love me. I fell into a deep dark hole. I slept all day or stay awake for days. I hid under the doona. I wouldn't do things I normally did. I didn't eat. I cried at the drop of a hat. I became introverted. Just not me. All I could feel was pain.

It was a really physical thing. Not in my imagination. A real ache that filled every crevice of me. The nurse at work was worried about me and conned me to see my doctor telling me she thought I was going through early menopause knowing it as depression. I would never have gone otherwise. I saw the doctor and he prescribed anti depressants and sleeping pills but after about a week the pain was still there. I couldn't escape it. I placed my sleeping pills next to a bottle of scotch and drove to the beach to see my last sunset. I wasn't thinking about how upset everyone would be. I just wanted the pain to stop. By the time I got home I had thought clearly enough to know I needed more help. I saw the doc the next day. We adjusted my meds. A friend got me over to Tassie for 2 weeks and I slowly came back. The demons never go away though. They are still there. They still haunt me. Most recently since my mum died in September they come back most nights. I lie in bed visualising a knife slicing into my arm, with the cut comes release. Over and over and over again. I don't want to die. I don't want to cut myself. I just want the pressure to be released. I'm having counselling. It's helping. I call my meds my vitamin B. B for brain. I know I'll need them forever. I know I have a mental illness, but it took me years to accept that fact. Accept that I need more help than medication. You'll never know when you see me or hear me that there is anything wrong. I bounce into a room, into a conversation with a smile on my face and a kiss on my lips. Only a few know. Only one knows how low I've been. And it's not even my husband.

Anonymous."

CASE 3: "EDUCATION - There definitely needs to be education at school particulary High Schools, my 5yr old is doing health at school at the moment as in nutrition which is great, but I would love there to be a program about mental health by at least the time she gets to year 7. Knowledge is such power, if I had been educated about mental health it would have been such an easier time for myself and my family, when I was affected by it. How can it not be part of the schools education program before these poor kids hit year 11 & 12? There also needs to be education for the wider community through tv ad campaigns, in newspapers and on radio, if it is HIV or the road toll it will get highlighted (which of course it should), but for some reason we still bury our heads in the sand about mental health, its still something to be kept quiet and the silence just kills more. Its not rocket science if I'd seen ads just saying that this anxiety is very common & can be treated, I wouldn't have stressed out more and ran round thinking I had lost my mind and would lose my kids if people knew. And the other benefits would be family members/friends/work colleuges could learn how to deal with it and how to help.

Education is what I craved when this first happened to me, I got prescribed the drugs and got told to think positive, but that wasn't enough I needed education and an understanding on what had happened and why and what to do to help myself, I needed resources but found thay were hard to come by. If you go through something terrifying and you don't understand how and why it happened, you are just petrified it will happen again and so the circle of dread and worry starts and keeps feeding itself.

IMMEDIATE EMERGENCY HELP - I needed urgent urgent help 2 or 3 times and it was lacking, the 1st time I drove myself to the emergency department, I was distraught and beyond reasonable thinking. I thought I was dying or would die very soon, think I was sobbing so much the nurse at the window put me out the back away from other 'normal patients', I couldn't even sit on the chair I was curled up under it like a baby. I had no idea what was going on, people just kept walking past me. I estimate now that I waited approx 1.5hrs for someone from the pysch dept to come and see me. At one point an elderly lady, came up to me and said 'I'm so so sorry, you must be the mother of the boy who has just passed'! God I still cringe just writing that but thats how much of a mess I was. I hadn't slept for 2 days, hadn't showered, changed my clothes, drunk a sip of water or eaten. It took all my will power to dress and feed the kids, I can't explain the feeling but I'd definetly like to rename panic attacks as absolute terror attacks. Imagine you are on a plane, its going down and the water is coming towards you and you can't move or do anything it was the level of terror for 3-5 days. I needed someone to say you  have high anxiety and/or a panic attack it happens to alot of people, it will pass and we can help you. I needed a salvation army lady or some sort of volunteer to sit with me and hold my hand while I waited at the hospital, all my family is in Sydney or NZ and my partner had to stay home to look after kids.

Another time, maybe 6 months later, I told my sister who was visiting from NZ to ring an ambulance as I was going to kill myself, it had been building up for days and I couldn't live in my skin anymore. It would of  been so much better if I had a local mental health number to call for such emergencies, so someone who was trained in the area could come out and help us and calm me down, assess me and formulate a plan. I was still with it enough to know I was on the brink but I didn't want to go, but I couldn't take the torment anymore but others obvioubsly go past that. That night they took me to emergency dept and I sat in waiting room for around an hour, I wasn't crying I couldn't speak, I was right next to the door that lead to the road I got up twice and hung round the door but thought I can't do this to my kids so I got their photo out and just knew I had to hang in there it was awful, I needed someone sitting with me, I didn't trust myself.

ONE STOP MENTAL HEALTH SHOP - I was shoved from pillar to post, emergency apartment sent for the pysch dept to come see me, they hand balled me back to the emergencey dept dr's because my BP was through the roof, they sent me back to pysch who gave me valium, then told me go to the local dr who sent me back to pysch dept at geelong hosp but this time during the day, they sent me to surf coast health care and they gave me more valium and told me to go back to pysch at geelong hosp! All the time I am literally hang on for my life for my 1yr old and 3 yr old.

There needs to be a place in the health care system you go to and they can help you with getting it together, comforting, medication, education, support groups and resources etc. I would be very reluctant to call a hospital or mental health care worker again if I went back to that level of illness. Alot of valium and alot of travelling to different depts so they could tell you to go somewhere else. If I didn't have my partner and kids back then I would have just happily walked out onto the highway, there's only so many times you can call out for help.

SPEAKING OUT - Last but definetly not least I guess we have to have the courage to speak out, it's the isolation that is terrifying, everyone else seems having a great time and you just think you are flawed and don't belong. I went through it for 8 months before I let my sister tell my mum and GUESS WHAT my mum went silent then cried (a 1st I think), then said she had severe panic attacks and so did my Aunty and her daughter. She has become a huge support but I was too scared to tell her my own Mum, I was sure she would completely not understand. I havn't told alot of people but when I do, before you finish your sentence they have started telling you about their or their friends/family experiences.

When I was in the early months I would 'freak out' and have to ring my partner to come home from work because I was scared I was going to go crazy and lose control (whatever that means!). What made it worse was the worry it would impact on his job, I begged him not to tell anyone at work but he told his boss as he works at Barwon prison, so not somewhere you can just walk out of, he said his boss at the time just put his head in his hands and said please please just go. It turned out he had moved from a small country prison to barwon as his wife had severe severe panic attacks and had made attempts on her life several times, so they moved to geelong to be near a larger pysch ward. What I'm trying to say is that you just don't know it is common but when you hear those stories it makes it not so bad, but the silience around the subject makes it more horrifying than it needs to be.

Anonymous."

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