Letters | Hong Kong needs more open and empathetic conversations on suicide

World Suicide Prevention Day falls on September 10. The 2024-2026 theme, “Changing the Narrative on Suicide”, invites us to reduce stigma and foster open, supportive conversations. It asks us to move from silence and misunderstanding to empathy and connection, creating environments where people feel safe to speak up and seek help.

Over the past year, we collaborated with Samaritans Befrienders Hong Kong and people bereaved by suicide – including some who have carried their grief for more than a decade – to publish Afar in Memory: Lives Unfinished. The book honours those we have lost and documents both the profound challenges and the possibility of growth during suicide bereavement. We hope that newly bereaved individuals can find companionship in these stories and feel encouraged to seek professional support when needed.

We are grateful to have been invited to speak at more than 10 bookshops. At these talks, people who have experienced suicidal thoughts, those bereaved by suicide, teachers and mental health professionals shared candidly about their untold stories, stigma and everyday challenges. The rooms were filled with empathy. These moments reminded us that when safe spaces are created, people do open up – and supportive healing can begin.

Comprehensive and sustainable suicide prevention efforts are urgently needed. They are most effective when people with lived experience are meaningfully involved in shaping and implementing them – whether in schools, workplaces, communities or health services. We hope more stakeholders, especially people in recovery from suicidal crises and peers of those who died by suicide, will continue to share their experiences. Together, we can co-create safer, more comfortable platforms that make compassionate, life-affirming conversations possible.