Where to Find Help for Suicidal Ideation in Australia

This post aims to provide Australians with supports and contact numbers for those experiencing suicidal ideation in Australia. It also includes a list of resources available during times of crisis or struggling to cope with things in their life or someone they know. I also include some tips on how to talk with someone who you suspect may be feeling suicidal.

Although ideally, it is better to manage mental health before it gets to crisis point, it’s not something we necessarily tend to do. Instead can find ourselves experiencing a crisis before learning some strategies to cope with intense feelings.

Some of the resources listed here are to help one manage and work through mental health before things get worse such as Reachout, Mensline and SANE.

One way to prevent and manage mental health for instance is to practice self care on a regular basis. This can help one manage stress and anxiety levels before they escalate. Having a pet can also be a very practical way of managing challenging thoughts as they can be considered protective factors. Read more about the benefits of having a pet for managing your mental health here. Focusing on your wellbeing is also important in managing when your stress increases.

Additionally, practicing self soothing strategies can also be valuable in managing suicidal thoughts. Here’s a thorough list for you to work through.

If you are at immediate risk of harm or risk to yourself or others call one of the numbers below to get immediate help.

Suicide Helplines and Resources – Australia

Suicide CallBack Service

1300 659 467

24hrs a day 7 days a week

https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/

Cost of a local call

Suicide Callback Service is a nationwide service available for anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts. Provided by professionals via telephone and online counselling any time of the day or night, anywhere in Australia.

They have resources on the website to help anyone:

feeling suicidal
worried about someone who is feeling suicidal
has lost someone to suicide
and health professionals supporting those experiencing suicidal ideation

The website also includes a Virtual Assistant called Claire who can provide you with a progressive muscle relaxation program to help manage stress and improve mental function.

There is also a safety plan app called the ReMinder app.

The ReMinder app helps you:

create your own team of supports during times of crisis
what you can do to calm your intense feelings
Create a list for reasons to life.
Make your environment safe
Keep the name and contact details of the nearest hospital to access during times of crisis
Names of professionals you can speak with and resources to keep yourself safe.
Make a safety plan commitment to yourself to keep yourself safe when feeling suicidal.

Lifeline

13 11 14

24 hours a day 7 days a week.

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Cost of a local call. Could be more from mobiles.

A national charity organisation for crisis intervention and suicide prevention for those living in Australia. For anyone over the age of 18 yrs.

Lists Fact Sheets and Coping Kit to help when feeling suicidal or struggling to manage intense feelings.

Fact Sheets have information for a variety of topics:

depression
loneliness
anxiety
suicide
if you are worried about someone being suicidal
if you have lost someone to suicide
domestic violence
financial stress and food
psychotic illness
grief and loss

Beyond Blue

1300 22 46 36

https://www.beyondblue.org.au

Cost of a local call

For anyone, any age, any background, male, female, non binary, where ever you live in Australia.

They also offer an app called beyond now designed to help develop a safety plan for managing when feeling suicidal and at risk of harm. There is lots of helpful information for anyone experiencing challenging thoughts around depression and suicide.

The website includes information on:

Stats of how many men take their life per day in Australia
Information on wellbeing
Supporting yourself
Supporting someone who is suicidal
Facts about mental health
Personal stories
Treatment options

Kids Helpline

1800 55 1800

24hrs a day 7 days a week

www.kidshelp.com.au

Free call from all landlines, and most mobile phones

Ages: 5 yrs – 25 yrs

Access: Phone, web chat and email

Heaps of information listed on the website for:

primary aged young people,
teens
young adults
parents
schools

It is subdivided into these age groups with sections for particular topics to research that is age appropriate.

Young people can get support for a wide range of issues including bullying, relationships, abuse, self harm, suicidal thoughts, mental health, cyberbullying, friendship issues and anything else that a young person might struggle with and need support from a caring professional. Plus really helpful tips and strategies on the site for a young person or parent to access for support in their world.

There’s quizzes about feelings that Spongebob guides you through. And a new gaming and live streams page called Twitch that you can find out more here.

Reachout

Contact: https://au.reachout.com/

Available for young people, parents, and carers of young people to learn more of young people’s issues.

Has valuable resources for when you are looking into the issues you are facing. Best to look this information up before reaching a crisis point.

Offers support, tools and tips for managing a range of issues from everyday issues through to mental illness and crisis intervention.

Some examples include:

Gender and Identity
Anger
Drugs
Relationships
Anxiety and Depression
Suicide
Self harm

Some of the tools that are included as coping strategies include:

chats for life – an app that helps you plan to have a conversations with someone you’re concerned about their safety and mental wellbeing
theCheckIn – an app also designed to help you learn what to say to a friend you’re concerned about.
MoodMission – an app that helps you manage your moods when feeling low or anxious. Based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to help you learn new and better ways to cope with anxiety and depression.
Pacifica – an app that has been designed by psychologists to help one manage stress, anxiety and depression with helpful strategies.
Stop Breathe and Think – an app that helps learn how to meditate and practice mindfulness.

Headspace

1800 650 890

https://headspace.org.au/

Free call from landlines and most mobile phones. Face to face appointments are free when you get a Mental Health Plan through a referral from your GP.

A service for young people aged between 12 yrs to 25 yrs.

They offer face to face counselling as well as online web chat and phone counselling.

eheadspace is the online portal for support using phone and web chat.

If you are looking for a location in Australia to see a face to face therapist go to their find a centre page.

Mensline

Phone: 1300 78 99 78

https://mensline.org.au/mens-mental-health/talking-about-suicide/

Cost of a local call.

Offers phone, webchat and email 24 hours a day.

A service for men struggling with issues happening in their lives. This can range from separation, anger, mental health, relationships, being a parent etc.

Offers phone and online counselling any time anywhere within Australia. Also offers useful tips and information online relevant to managing the wide range of issues men face living in Australia.

SANE

1800 187 263

https://www.sane.org/

Free call from all landlines and most mobiles

Offers phone contact, email support, forums and information on the website.

Sane is a service for those experiencing mental health illness or families of a loved one living with mental illness. Sometimes, however, people with a mental illness might deteriorate with their mental health becoming suicidal or agitated and become a risk to others. You can contact SANE who can help assess the situation and provide support or referrals for you.

You can also contact your local Crisis Assessment Treatment Team (CATT) at the closest major hospital to the person of concern. The CATT team are a multidisciplinary team made up of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and nurses. They can assess the needs of the individual struggling with a mental illness and can decide whether hospitalisation is required or can be admitted to hospital to help manage the condition. If the individual is a risk to themselves or others, they are likely to be hospitalised to help keep them safe.

Operating Hours for Phone line – 10am – 10pm AEST

Forums – moderated 24 hours a day

Emergency Services

000 if you are at immediate risk to yourself or others. Free call.

If you are a friend or family member it’s okay to call emergency services if you believe someone is at risk of ending their lives. If you know the address of the individual of concern they will send an ambulance. When you don’t know of the location or unsure if the person is safe, police can be sent to do a welfare check who could also have ambulance arrive too.

Hospital

If you are struggling to keep yourself safe due to suicidal thoughts, or have immediate intention to act on these thoughts, you or a friend can call an ambulance. They will take you to the nearest hospital where you can talk with mental health workers who can support you through this difficult time.

You can also present to your local emergency department who can assess and help you keep yourself or your family member safe from harm.

#YouCanTalk

https://www.lifeinmindaustralia.com.au/youcantalk

Is a collaborative campaign between mental health and suicide prevention national organisations to open up the discussion and empower everyone to find a voice in being able to ask someone if they feel suicidal.

Half of the Australian population are afraid to ask a person if they are feeling suicidal for fear of what the answer might be. #youcantalk is a new direction for suicide prevention in Australia.

Tips for talking about suicide:

You don’t need to be a professional to check in with someone about whether they are feeling suicidal.
Don’t avoid them, it’s better to be around them and check in how they are feeling.
Trust your instincts. If you suspect someone might be feeling suicidal, it’s okay to ask them.
Be prepared for them to possibly say yes.
Use tools for managing how to support the individual
Listen with compassion. Don’t fix their situation. Be empathic.
Find out who they feel comfortable sharing their concerns with including other possible supports such as the ones listed above.
Ensure they are safe and if they can’t agree to keep themselves safe, contact emergency services or take them to a hospital.
Go to https://www.ruok.org.au/how-to-ask for more tips

In Summary

If you know anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts or you yourself have been having suicidal thoughts, talk to someone you feel comfortable with and can trust. Call a professional service for immediate support to help you get through the suicidal thoughts you’re having.

Don’t act on the thoughts. Thoughts are just thoughts, they aren’t real. They can pass if you get support and practice some strategies to help manage how you feel. There’s even more information in this article.

Suicide Helplines – For Crisis Support

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, do not act on them. The thoughts you are having are just thoughts. They can shift and you can keep yourself safe from the thoughts. For those of you experiencing suicidal thoughts, the first thing to do is talk to someone you trust. Either let someone in your social network know that you’re struggling, or call a helpline who can support you and talk you through your experience of suicidal thoughts. This is not something you need to suffer alone. There are many helplines throughout the world, so I’ve pulled as many as I could find together to create this list of International Suicide Helplines for you to contact if you are feeling unable to keep yourself safe.

International Suicide Helplines

Develop a Safety Plan

A safety plan is a list of things you do and follow when you are feeling like you are struggling to keep yourself safe.

Do not act on any thoughts to end your life. Many people have felt like there was no hope but with support and help those feelings shifted so they no longer felt like they had to end their life. You too can work through those sad, uncomfortable feelings.

Take it one hour at a time. Maybe even one minute at a time to help get you though.

Tell someone you trust in your network that you are struggling. Get help early before your feelings escalate.
Find something that you can do that can be a distraction. This might be listening to music, listening to a meditation, doing some slow breathing,
Write down how you feel,
Call a suicide helpline in your country. See list above.
Delay acting on thoughts to end your life. Use this time to talk to someone.
Avoid being alone, especially at night.
Challenge your thoughts – they’re not right. They aren’t even real. They are something our brains have come up with and can shift. You might even believe no one cares or would notice you gone, but this is never true. It would have a negative effect on so many people. What if this was your friend saying this to you. What would you say to them?
Practice creating some distance between the thoughts to end your life and your observer mind. Place the thoughts onto a bubble in front of you and release it up and place it onto clouds in the sky.
Create a list of all the positive things in your life
What are coping strategies you already have?

Feelings are Normal

Recognise feelings are a part of being human. Us humans have a big range of feelings and some of them are good, but some of them are not so good. How you feel can shift and will if you focus on something else and shift the thoughts from ending your life to something different like what you can live for.

Think about something you can feel grateful for.

Think about things or people to live for.

Be Present

Breathe slowly in, hold for 2 seconds then release. Breathing helps your body to relax even though it feels like it’s impossible. Keep breathing slowly till you notice a shift. Being present helps you not focus on the past or the future, instead brings you back to this moment. Here’s more information on how to be present.

Ground yourself. You can do this by looking around you and say 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell or taste, one thing you are grateful for. Here’s more information on this topic in a previous post.

Coping Strategies

We all have coping strategies. However if we have not actually thought of behaviours as a coping strategy then it’s possible to not realise we do have ways of coping already.

Coping strategies can involve many activities as well as ways of using our psychological muscles. What I mean by this is finding something that you can focus on that can help you shift what you’re thinking of. For instance if I said to you purple turtle. What do you think of? Maybe a purple turtle? The same goes for shifting what we are thinking about. Suicidal thoughts can also increase how we feel as they continue and go round and round in our minds and can get stuck in a loop. No matter what pain you are feeling, finding something else to focus on will help get you through those tough thoughts to give you some space and help you work through how you’re feeling.

Some coping strategies can be

Going for a walk
Think about your favorite holiday location.
Imagine a favorite quiet location such as a rainforest, beach, creek, or grassy field. Which ever you are drawn to can help you think and imagine something that you enjoy which can help shift where your current thoughts are.
Write down how you feel.
Do some yoga.
Do some drawing or coloring in. This makes you use a different part of your brain as you use movement and creativity.
Do some self soothing strategies such as listening to your favorite music, or using essential oils. Here’s more information on self soothing strategies.
Look at some cute baby animal pictures – this helps release serotonin in your brain to help you shift how you feel to a more positive space.

Whatever you choose to do as a way of coping, you need to focus your attention on it so you can engage with it and help you think about things from a different perspective, even just to give yourself a break from the suicidal thoughts you’ve been having.

Ongoing Support

For ongoing support you can consider a range of services to help you work through what’s been going on for you. Here’s a list in this post that I’ve put together.

My number one recommendation for working through challenging your thoughts and issues such as depression is online-therapy.com. It’s an online service that involves worksheets, contact via live messaging and texting. You’ll find more information about it in my review here.

Summary

If you have been experiencing suicidal thoughts, do not act on those thoughts, Take time to talk to someone and get support.

You are not alone. You can work through this difficult time. With support you can shift how you feel and have hope.

Category: Resources

Australian Suicide Helplines and Resources