If you are thinking of taking your own life, take a moment and visit one of these sites:
http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/
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I had a startling epiphany tonight. It was regarding suicide.
Not mine but read on.
One of the reasons I moved from Blogspot to WordPress is because I have more administrative powers when it came to page development and access to statistics. I am able to see how people get to my blog, what they click while on my site, what posts are the most popular et cetera. I find it a fascinating social study. Also reported is what keywords in search engines bring people to my site. Ex: if you google (I love how that’s now a verb) periginatioanimae I’m the first 35 or so hits. As you can imagine I get a lot of traffic from people looking up words like: investing McCain Obama democrat..etc. Actually a few of my top hits are: swastika tattoo, flds, law school numbers, drugs, stocks, charlie brown.. Just to name a few. Yes my posts have been very diverse.
Anyways, tonight I was looking at what people were looking up that brought them to my cyber doorstep. That’s when I saw that someone looked up
“help me im suicidal”
This really got me thinking about the awesome power that comes from blogging. To think that people have come to my site to actually learn something. To think that someone with suicidal ideations have crossed my path looking for help. That got me thinking about Google’s hit list. No not like the kind the Sapranos have, but their search results list. I thought to myself, if someone types in suicide, or suicidal, I wonder what would be the first few sites listed? Would they treat suicide lightly? Or in a humorous nature? As I loaded Google’s search engine I thought to myself, “If the first site isn’t a very serious suicide prevention site, I think people should lobby to make it a rule or something. I’d say that should go with any very serious subject… when I typed in suicide I was very pleased to find that all the top sites were geared toward suicide prevention.
My experience with the Suicidal
I’ve talked people down from the brink of suicide both in my professional life as a counselor and in my personal life as a friend of even acquaintance. From someone using the metal tip of a pencil, to a plastic shower curtain ring. Matter of fact, if you know me personally then you know that sushi is one of my all time favorite foods. I began loving sushi in 2006 when I met a young girl who moved into my apartment complex. It was obvious to me that this girl was in need of serious social support. Within just a few minutes of talking to her it was easy to see that she used cocaine and alcohol, was an emancipated youth, a high school drop out, and sexually abused (sometime I should write a whole blog about sexual abuse– for whatever reason I’d say this is one of my most natural ‘gifts’; I can quickly sense when a girl has been sexually abused in the past because of a few subtle tell tales). I immediately decided to befriend her and offered to take her and her roommate to lunch. This is the part when she introduced me to sushi. I really only talked to her a couple of times; twice to tell her guy friends to get out of her apartment because it was past curfew and once to tell them they’re going to get evicted (they did) for their drugs and partying (they did also). Anyways, about a week after they got evicted I get a phone call from this girl. She had taken about 80 pills in the past few hours and was planning on killing herself by taking a lot more. When she spoke I could barely understand her. Her mind was racing, her speech tangential at best. Speed. At first she was rather matter of fact about it all. She said she was going to take all these pills but wanted to call and see how I’m doing first. Now if that’s not reaching out, then I don’t know what is.
A lot of people get scared when they think someone they know is thinking of committing suicide. And scared they should be, but scared FOR the person, not scared to act. Also a lot of people think that if you approach someone about it, then the person will become defensive, run away, and go do it. As if confronting them on it will act as an accelerant to their self-destruction; it has been my observation that this is not the case (remember that I have a degree in Clinical Psychology and have extensively studied mental health). If someone was really firm on actually ending it all, they tend to have a different attitude– they tend to be calm and relaxed because they see a light at the end of the tunnel. Most people are scared of suicide and are mulling it over for a while as an option and alternative to failed coping mechanisms. They WISH there were another way to stop the pain, but sometimes death seems like the only way out. So as the person they are talking to what you really need to do are a couple of things…
- Let them vent. If they feel like crying, yelling, ramble, by all means let them. Be a very active listener
- Be concerned. There’s a few very straight forward questions you need to ask them to access their actual risk level. Ask if they’ve thought about killing themselves. If they say yes, ask if they have a plan for how to do it and if so, what is it. If they say yes and tell you what it is, ask them if they have what they need (knife, gun, pills, rope, cliff). If you are in person and they say they have the gun or pills or whatever, you respond authoritatively. Ask them to tell you where it is and to give it to you. If you’re on the phone you ask them where it is. Maybe it’s at home or maybe they’re looking at it. Also ask them if they have planned when they are going to kill themselves. If the gun is in their hand, you can probably fill in the blanks and skip this one, otherwise they might be thinking of doing it Friday after work or something. With these answers you can access their danger level to some extent. Now reading this you may have thought to yourself “Yeah right. Like someone will flat out tell you how and when they’re going to kill him/herself”. The answer is, uh, yeah, they will. Vast majority of suicides or attempted suicides have warning signs and crys for help. You have to remember that people don’t turn to suicide as a first resort. They turn to it only when nothing else seems to make a difference. That’s when you come in. You’re making the difference. If the person answers “Yes, Gun, I have it right here, right now, goodbye.” and hangs up, I don’t know if there’s much you could have done anyway.
- Determine an appropriate course of action. If the person is a very low risk, you validate them and check on them later. If they’re a decent risk, I’d suggest going over and talking with them. You can get a lot better feel for them in person. I’ve been through multiple trainings in how to read someone’s body language, vocal qualities, affect, sentence structure… essentially psychoanalyze someone. The basic skills are innate in all of us. You know when someone is in distress right? Use your personal skills to soothe them and help them. If they’re in more serious trouble, have either you or him/her call for a therapist or church leader. If the case is very serious, have them or you call 911 or go to the emergency room.
- Follow up with them later. Look for any signs of continued suicidal ideation.
To be honest I’ve thought of volunteering at a Suicide Prevention Line. It’s something I’m cut out for (meaning I can handle the stress) and I think I’d get a lot of satisfaction out of it. Whatever I do for a profession someday, I plan on still being active in mental illness issues. Even if I help one person, all the study and training will be worth it.
Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him.
-Doctrine and Covenants 18:10,11
One more point I want to make: When we think of the Atonement and Repentance the most ready conceptualizations are of repenting of sins. While true enough, it’s a very narrow definition to both concepts. Repentance does not only mean “to stop sinning, feel bad, tell your bishop, and don’t do it anymore”. Look up repentance in Wikipedia and in there you’ll see this: “According to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, repentance denotes a change of mind, i.e., a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world.”
So repenting can be defined as a change of mind. A fresh view of yourself and the world. Doesn’t that sound fitting in the context of coming back from the brink of suicide? So let’s look at that scripture I quoted from one more time…
“Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might [change their mind/change their outlook on themselves, and life] and come unto him.”
I like that a lot. The atonement is much more broad than we often think. It envelopes recovery from all mistakes and errors….
Filed under: JOURNAL, PSYCHOLOGY
