There is something that so many people find so scary about suicide. And I think a lot of the time it is lack of control, lack of being able to help, the distress of knowing another is in that much distress that they see death as the only answer. The fact that we would like to think that if they had just reached out or hinted their intentions, that we would be the person that could stop it and change their minds. As if, we all hold the power within us to keep someone else going when they can see no possible way to keep going.
I battle with this one a lot. I do believe that there is always hope. That sometimes we are required to hold on to that hope for someone else because try as they might to grip on to in with their fingertips, it is just so slightly out of their reach. I also think that when it has slipped away, when it is at the point of just being out of reach, there are times when their is no other path or option in sight. It sneaks in and causes people to do things no one can ever imagine and quite often, although there may have been a niggling thought somewhere in our minds, something we never think someone we know can do.
And counselling brings these people to your doorstep, as they look to you to end the pain and suffering they are in, in the quickest way possible. And more often and not, the road out of that is not quick, but a long slow look into the depths of what hurts the most. And it’s helping another see that we can bear to be with them, even in those depths.
But I also come at this from another angle, as someone who frequently walks in the depths of those thoughts. I never consider myself a risk, I do not feel like I will act on the thoughts, but that doesn’t make the thoughts any less scary, or distressing, or lonely. For one thing, I know that a lot of the time my thoughts go there it is just in the regular cycle of life, one a month, for 2-3 days, just before my period, I want the world to end. I want the pain to stop and it’s been there for so long I can only see one way out. And so for those 2-3 days, I survive in a haze, longing for something that I won’t do, because for the rest of the time I know I don’t want that.
It doesn’t stop the thoughts, the wanting, the urge to just go that one step too far or swallow that handful of pills. As if somehow everything would ease if I could just do that. And the understandable fear of speaking those words out loud, of the chain reaction it might spark, as you are labelled a risk and people think they need to jump into action to save you. But maybe in my healing I need to be allowed to go and sit and take a walk around in those depths, to be allowed to feel whatever it is I need to feel without comment or rescuing or judgement. To acknowledge that at times there feels like there is no other way out or too escape. Sometimes the thought of the end is exactly what keeps me going. I can keep going if I know I have a choice. I can chose to live in pain if I know that I could get out of it if I really wanted to.
There are no easy answers for anyone else or anyone around me. And I know it takes a lot of trust to allow me to go there and still know I will be here tomorrow. And I struggle with the idea that someone would want to take that choice away from me because it is better if I am alive. I would like to think that I get to make that choice, but I know that I do not. And it raises so many questions for me about what choices others are allowed to make. I understand I have to act in a professional capacity as and when the situations call for it, and it that sense, I don’t question it. But in another sense, the knowledge of autonomy and never wanting to force someone into something they don’t want, means there is a part of me that does battle.
If we tell someone it is better that they are alive, better for who? The concept of holding on to hope for someone is one thing, picking it up and forcing it down their throat is another. The balance is in there but it is a fine line. And the difficulty and bravery of being able to tell someone face to face these feelings is a whole other concept. It’s all very well, sitting behind a screen and writing about it, but truly acknowledging it in real time takes courage. And I feel like the way we react wipes that away. Keep people safe, but allow them to walk around those depths and feel whatever it is they need to feel. More often than not, it’s overwhelming because it has been discounted and disallowed. Sometimes, only by allowing them to take a walk in those places can they process and make sense of what is in their head and start to put some of the pieces back together again, start to see that the light is still shining, even if it is the tiniest speck in a pit of darkness.
People need to be able to talk about this more, and it feels like there is still so much taboo around it, and that it shouldn’t somehow be spoken about. And yet, it feels like in these times more than ever, people need safe spaces.
Fragmented Therapist 