A couple of months ago I wrote about my decision to enrol for the ASIST training workshop. Devised by Living Worksto enable people to deliver “suicide first aid”, the course is delivered in Ireland by the HSE (National Office for Suicide Prevention), co-ordinated by the HSE Regional Resource Officers for Suicide Preventionand most importantly, it’s available free of charge to everyone, though places are limited.

At the time, suicide was in the news (evenmore than usual), and it got me to thinking; if the State is going to continue to fail people who are in immediate danger of suicide- which it is; there is no disputing this -then the rest of us had better damn well start equipping ourselves to deal with it, and fast.

My reasoning? Once upon a time, I told someone I was close to that I felt so low that I didn’t…