TRIGGER WARNING: Depression and suicide
I always get a curdling feeling in my stomach when people ask me “How are you?”. It seems like an awfully intimate enquiry if all we can stomach as a response is the codified “I’m good” or “I’m okay”, and yet we can all relate to throwing out these exact responses on a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad day. We are weary about being open about our pain so we circle around it not knowing what to say when people take a leap and reveal that they are not okay. If we are tiptoeing around the topic of our sadness then it’s no wonder that we are uncomfortable when talking about suicide. We tend to sweep unpalatable problems away to the furthest side of our internal universes and avoid talking about it. But, if we can open up a conversation about how to speak about suicide and suicidal ideation, we can slowly bite away at the stigma/misconceptions and broaden our empathy towards the many among us (it can happen to anybody) who suffer from suicidal ideation, and actually do something about preventing the dire consequences.
Before I get into it though, it should be noted that this is not a “How To” guide about what to say to loved ones struggling with suicidal thoughts. I am not a licenced therapist or expert. I only impart research, personal opinion and having suicide permeate its way into my life through having friends whom I care for deeply struggling with suicide attempts and ideation. The advice given in this article is not a one-size-fits-all solution that will fit the intricacies specific to the person in your life struggling with suicidal ideation.
People talk about someone who has died by illness or in senseless tragedy differently from the way we talk about someone who has died by suicide. We seem to reduce people who died by suicide to the manner in which they died. A misconception about those who have died by suicide is that they are taking the easy way out or that taking your own life is a cop out. When experiencing suicidal thoughts, you are taken over by a myopia which prevents you from seeing anything other the all-encompassing and unquantifiable pain that you are steeped in. Although suicidal thoughts do not always necessarily lead to taking your life, they are means to soothe the melancholy that you find inescapable. To the suicidal person, taking their life is not an easy way out, but rather it seems like their only option. It no longer feels like a choice when you are struggling to get through every waking moment.
David Foster Wallace articulates what it is like to experience this in such an all-consuming manner in his book Infinite Jest:
“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
People who have attempted suicide, or those who open up about struggling with suicidal thoughts, are shamed for being selfish because they are not considering what it will do to their loved ones or all that they have to be grateful for. The person who is suicidal does not view their act as selfish, rather as selfless because they feel as if they are relieving their loved ones from the burden they have placed on them. People might be well intentioned when dolling out this advice, but essentially you are minimizing what the suicidal person’s struggle and diminishing their pain as not a big enough deal or real enough because they might have what appears to be a good life.
Now that we have gotten down and dirty with how not to deal with suicide, I thought it best that we look at preventative part. Often when we have not personally experienced something, we have no clue what to say, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is okay to ask someone to explain to you what it feels like to struggle with suicidal thoughts. You do not need to be their knight in shining armour or feed your saviour complex by giving out unsolicited advice. Just go in with a sense of humility and gentle inquisitiveness, and most importantly listen with empathy. Listening with love and letting your loved one know that it is okay to not be okay is one of the best things you could do. That being said, here are five general pointers I came across in my research:
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Just ask someone straight out if they are feeling suicidal if you suspect it. Talking about it doesn’t trigger it, but normalizes it and makes the person suffering with these thoughts not feel as if there is something wrong with them.
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Ask how they are planning to carry the act out and if so, do whatever you can to keep them safe – stay on the phone with them or take them to a emergency hospital.
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Remind them that their pain is not permanent and that it will pass. Make sure that they know that they are not defined by their suicidal thoughts or their depression and that you accept them no matter what.
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Be there for them. Being there is not just saying “I’m here if you need me”. It is sending voice notes, hanging out with them, and listen.
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Help connect them to a support system of which you can be a part of.
Finally, if you are someone struggling with suicidal thoughts, I want to you to know that you are worthy and you are good even now whilst subsumed in your pain. The voices that tell you that you are just your pain are liars. You deserve to love and be loved. Please help yourself and ask for help. Be here to be here if that is all you can do.
Resources
Groote Schuur Hospital psychiatric Unit provides cheaper psychiatric care and therapy than private institutions. Contact them at 021 404 2175.
If you can’t access therapy, Katie Morton is a resource on YouTube, she is a licensed therapist and has a very kind and understanding way of teaching people.