I feel like suicide can still be such a big taboo. Like you shouldn’t talk about it. Or that maybe you feel like you can’t talk about it because you can never be 100% sure how people are going to react. And there’s always the fear that they will go into over-drive and report what you have said so someone because you are a “risk”. And, I guess it is worth saying from the beginning that I do not want to make light of this, or pretend that there are those who are in need of real, immediate help and sometimes we do have to act on what we are told.
I suppose the question is one of balance. It’s why is counselling training we are taught to ask questions about risk and intent. To see whether we need to act now or not. But here’s the thing. Sometimes I wonder, what would a trainee counsellor do if they met me. And in some senses I think there are trainee counsellors who have met me, my coursemates being the obvious one. But I hide this part of myself, from fear of what they might say or do, through fear that they will feel the need to report it to lecturers or someone else and things will snowball out of control.
Because, the simple fact is… I am suicidal, I think about suicide frequently. It’s there, somewhere in my mind, more often than it’s not, and most days. I have the drugs that I could use to do it. I know they are there, and strangely there is some comfort knowing they are there. I frequently want nothing more than to die, to finish it, to end it all. But here is the other fact, I do not consider myself to be a risk or at risk. Because, I know, when I take a step back from all the noise in my head, not all of me actually wants to die. There is a part, that can see all the crap and the pain, but still knows there is another part, fighting and working through it all so there will come a day when those dark thoughts aren’t so loud.
On the dark days, when I lay in bed, screaming into a pillow, wishing that everything would just stop, I would love to pick up the phone and say to someone, “Hey, it’s really tough right now, I’d quite like to end it all, can we just talk for a few minutes?” and for them to be able to hold that without panicking or thinking about whether I am “safe” or not. That sometimes, I just need to be able to say, this is really hurting so so much and it is making me feel like this, and I just need someone to know how much it hurts and how scary my thoughts have gotten, without them jumping on the need to fix or make things better. That a friend with a listening ear might be all it needs to make the difference, to shine a light into the patch of darkness I’m currently in.
Sometimes, I get scared that these thoughts mean I shouldn’t be training as a therapist at all. Why would anyone want someone as a therapist that can still hurt so much themselves? But then I also think, why wouldn’t they. Therapists are human beings who are alive, and who therefore go through their own piles of crap. And how much more can we understand when a client talks of their struggles if we know what it is to struggle. There is a balance to be held there, a balance between realising everyone struggles and keeping on going, and realising that you need to stop and take a self-care break or things could turn not good.
I wish there were a way to be more open about it. To feel like these things could be talked about more honestly and openly without people getting scared. And to say that anyone shouldn’t have these thoughts and feelings is also rubbish. They are thoughts and feelings, which doesn’t mean they are facts and truth, but they are very real in the moment. And maybe if we could be more open about them, it would light up a few more spots in the darkness, so that it is not so scary in that place.
Fragmented Therapist 