DAPHNE, Alabama - Marissa Grayson said she was apprehensive about attending her first Out of the Darkness Walk in Birmingham nearly four years ago. Having lost her father Mark to suicide two years earlier, it was her first opportunity to gather with others who’d experienced the same type of grief, and she wasn’t sure what to expect.

“It wasn’t sad or overwhelming. It was calming and allowed me to begin to come to terms with it,” Grayson said. “I found it to be a great opportunity to be around people who understand the multitude of emotions that come with surviving the suicide of a close friend or family member. And since then, I decided that I wanted to be involved.”

Now, in addition to co-chairing the Birmingham Out of the Darkness Walk, Grayson serves on the board of the Alabama chapter of The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which organizes six similar walks statewide, including one scheduled Oct. 23 in Daphne. She also counsels the friends and family of suicide victims and as her role as a professor at Samford University, helps the school identify suicidal behavior and implement preventative measures.

Lisa Dunn, area director of Alabama’s AFSP, said the walk Oct. 23 will be the first in Daphne, but the fourth in Southwest Alabama since 2008. Dunn reported that in 2010, Alabama recorded 676 suicides, compared to 391 homicides statewide. “So it’s a crisis,” Dunn said.

“Out of the Darkness Walks are our largest annual public outreach and fundraising events, but they primarily serve to increase awareness of suicide and erase the stigma around mental disorders, mainly clinical depression, that cause some people to think they have no other choice but to take their own life,” Dunn said.

The AFSP is the largest nationwide nonprofit focused solely on the prevention of and recovery from suicide. In addition to providing educational programs, the organization educates the public about mood disorders and suicide prevention, promotes policies and legislation that impact suicide and prevention, provides resources for survivors of suicide loss and people at risk, and involves them in the work of the Foundation, while also funding preventive research.

Grayson pointed out that nearly all suicides are preventable, and in the case of her father, she’d wished she’d seen the warning signs sooner.

“He was a wonderful dad with a lot of love – but he was also good at putting on an act about what he was really feeling or going through,” Grayson said. “At the time of his death, he felt a lot of pressures about whether he was providing for his family and he was not happy with some of the relationships he was engaged in.

“I could tell he was struggling but we didn’t know what to do. Looking back, there were signs that he had lost control,” she said. “There is always guilt on the part of the survivors, but once you learn about others going through the same thing and find an outlet for your remorse, you can begin to let go of some of that guilt and start to help others.”

The Out of the Darkness Walk in Daphne will begin Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. at Daphne City Hall. Registration begins at 1 p.m. or can be done online at www.outofthedarkness.org. If you or someone you know could benefit from the programs at AFSP, visit www.asfp.org.