Jennifer Brasch is hoping The Reasons To Go On Living web project will offer inspirational stories to people down on life while also expanding understanding of what makes some people change their mind about ending it all.

If you've ever attempted or seriously contemplated killing yourself before deciding it's better to keep on living after all, Jennifer Brasch wants to hear your story.

The medical director of St. Joseph's Healthcare's psychiatric emergency service is spearheading a new Internet initiative that invites people to anonymously submit personal accounts of why they had a change in heart.

The goal of the aptly named The Reasons To Go On Living site -- www.the reasons.ca -- is to shed light on a little-researched area and offer stories that may inspire others who are suicidal to see the upside of life.

"I found a surprising shortage of research," Dr. Brasch says of the reasons why suicidal people change their minds.

"Is it a gradual process? Is it an abrupt transition, an epiphany? I don't know. I'm assuming there's some commonalities to it. It's a very difficult thing to access since it's such a deeply personal and in many ways painful experience," she says.

"There's lots of research looking at suicide risk factors and trying to predict who's at high risk to die by suicide, but not a lot looking at how we can help people to make the transition from feeling so desperate to wanting to go on with life."

Dr. Brasch says The Reasons To Go On Living project reflects a growing interest in using the Internet for research.

Among the benefits of offering an on-line forum, she says, is that people may be more likely to share their tales when able to do so anonymously.

"I think there's a huge stigma about mental illness across the country that still persists," says Dr. Brasch, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at McMaster University.

"It's still seen as weakness or a failure of some sort; whereas you wouldn't say that about someone who has diabetes or has had a heart attack," she says.

"It's also deeply personal and deeply painful for many and they're aware of how uncomfortable (the topic) is for family members and friends, and so they're reluctant to share."

Although accessible from around the globe, the Web site has a sizeable pool of potential stories to draw from in this country alone: about 4,000 Canadians die each year from suicide and it's estimated that between 20 and 40 times that number try to kill themselves.

Over the course of a lifetime, up to one in 25 people will try to end it all.

Locally, Dr. Brasch says 51 people took their own lives in 2005 -- the most recent year for which statistics were available -- but even that number is likely under-reported.

To put that in context, 20 people died in motor vehicle accidents and nine were murdered that year.

Dr. Brasch said suicide is the second-leading cause of death in youth and young adults after accidents, with the risk for males peaking in early adulthood.

The common element is some form of mental illness -- depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse, severe anxiety.

She is presently working with a community council to help develop suicide prevention strategy for Hamilton, one that could include measures like short waiting lists for people needing professional help and easy access to counselling for adolescents in distress.

"Often I think people come to suicide because they feel they need escape," she says.

"They're experiencing intolerable pain from whatever problems they have in their life and are looking for a way out, and unfortunately come to feel that the only out is to end their lives."

Dr. Brasch hopes the new Web site will help suicidal people see that there are better alternatives and "realize that there are always ways out."

She'd also like to see it encourage everyone to reflect on their lives and why they do get out of bed every morning.

"We all have reasons to go on living," she says. "Hopefully it will shed some meaning and some light on that idea."

Although stories will be anonymous, all submissions will first require completion of a consent form.

The anecdotes will then be analyzed by Dr. Brasch and her co-researcher on the project, Dr. Helen Kirkpatrick, a clinical nurse who specializes in psychiatric rehabilitation.

A selection of stories will be posted on the Web site.

"Suicides are a very complex experience and suicide attempts are complex actions. That's one of the things that makes them difficult to study and understand," Dr. Brasch says.

"If the Web site can serve as inspiration and even change one person's mind, it'll be worthwhile."