This year R U OK? Day and World Suicide Prevention Day could never be more important.
I said in March, this year will be the toughest year of our lives. It will certainly be the toughest year a lot of us can remember.
We have all been under terrible strain, and here in Australia, we face tremendous challenges.
Australians have lost jobs, livelihoods and their businesses, kids have had their education disrupted, and families have been separated.
For young children, and those finishing school this year, or in early university, I know it’s particularly stressful.
Important celebrations and commemorations have been taken away in so many circumstances. There’s funerals and weddings. Joyous gatherings and sad gatherings, but all gatherings that are important for who we are as human beings. It’s what life is all about in so many ways, how we connect with each other. And they have been heart breakingly disrupted this year.
There’s a lot of stress, and there’s a lot of pressure on Australians at the moment.
There’s a truth in the saying, a burden shared is a burden halved.
That’s why this year, more than ever, we can never be afraid to just simply ask, R U OK?
Chances are that will start a conversation, and that conversation can be a turning point in another person’s life.
More than ever, we need conversations about how we’re doing.
I want you to know that there is hope, and we will get to the other side of COVID-19.
There is hope in a vaccine, but even if one is not to occur quickly, we’re also taking action to get Australians back into jobs, to live with this virus and not let it overwhelm our lives, so we can visit our loved ones and the streets can be busy again.
Life will return to what we want it to be. It will happen.
It may take more time than we had hoped. There may be disruptions along the way. Things might not go always the way we would hope they would go. But it will happen.
The stress and isolation of our times can be managed if we ask for help.
Please be willing to ask the question this year: R U OK?
This year that might be done on the phone or online or on social media rather than in person but however you do it, find the opportunity to show the care and the compassion and the concern to ask: R U OK?
It says ‘you matter’. It says, ‘I want to know, because you matter’.
Sometimes that’s what people need to hear most, that they do matter, and we do care whether they are okay.
– Prime Minister Scott Morrison
So log on to www.ruok.org.au to find out more.
If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or www.lifeline.org.au
