Let’s replace “suicide prevention” with “suicide awareness” all cross the board. “Suicide Prevention” is an aggressive term to some of us who struggle with suicidal ideation. It comes from a good place: a directive to prevent more deaths of people who are suffering so hard in life that they want to die. On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not wanting more people to die (of anything) is generally considered a pretty high moral ground. However, preserving life without any regard for the quality of the life you’re aiming to preserve is pretty cold and often temporary.
Suicide prevention is nothing if it doesn’t address the underlying reasons a person wants to die. There are certainly some people who, being prevented from killing themselves, will turn a corner and be grateful that they were stopped from making an attempt, or saved from an attempt. Those are happy prevention stories and each of those lives saved is a victory worth celebrating. However, a large number of people struggling with suicidal ideation have mental and/or physical illnesses for which there is no cure and which is a huge contributing factor in their desire to die. Their desire is exactly as chronic as their illness is. You won’t save those people from suicide unless you have a whole lot of awareness about why they’re struggling and what their ultimate needs are – and then you find a way to meet those needs.
SUICIDE AWARENESS
Suicide is the last stop on a long road of pain, isolation, struggle, and usually many unsuccessful attempts to improve the problems that have made a person get to the point of believing that the only option they have left to end their suffering, is to die. You cannot keep a person like this alive without addressing all the stuff that came before each moment of life or death crisis. Suicide prevention campaigns tend to fall very short of this.
Which is why suicide rates are higher now than they’ve ever been before in recorded history.
People who want to help others survive their wish to die must become knowledgeable about the challenges facing them, the needs that aren’t being met, and must respect their autonomy.
First Step to Suicide Awareness is Acceptance:
The first thing everyone needs to do, who wants to positively impact the lives of suicidal people, is to accept that everyone has a right to do with their body as they choose. Committing suicide is LEGAL in all 50 of the United States and in a majority of the other countries in the world. Accepting and respecting this right is to respect the people you’re trying to help. We all deserve this respect.
Accepting and respecting the legal right of every American to kill themselves is NOT the same as thinking it’s okay or in any way suggests that you support it personally. It is merely to accept and respect that you don’t have a legal right to prevent someone from doing it.
This is the first step in suicide awareness: the legal and spiritual rights of the people you truly want to help.
What this means in practical terms is: don’t put people in psychiatric holds against their will to “save” their life. This IS traumatizing to many people who’ve experienced it. Do not force prevention on people who are already so desperate they want to die. We (the community of people who chronically struggle with suicide) distrust people who have the ability to get us put on a psyche hold, to report us to the police, or other forms of stigmatization.
Second Step to Suicide Awareness is Individuality:
Suicide awareness means knowing that each person who’s struggling to stay alive may have different needs that aren’t being met at the time you arrive on the scene offering to help them. There’s no one-size-fits-all kind of help. Those unmet needs are the KEY to helping a person through a suicidal crisis. The most immediate needs are the best place to start. Each person who’s struggling with suicide has a different personal history and it’s a vital piece of information to learn. Those histories are usually long ones involving abuse, trauma, loss, mental illness, etc.
Third Step to Suicide Awareness is Understanding Needs:
Examples of urgent needs people in crisis might have: someone to listen to them (without fear of being put on a 72 hour hold), a place to stay for the night, a hot meal, a hand to hold, somewhere safe to take their kids, peer support, someone to show kindness and compassion, someone to walk them through giving any weapons in their house to someone else to hang onto, or maybe someone to check in on them every hour for a few hours.
Examples of bigger and/or long-term needs: mental health services, long-term housing, medications, help with daily tasks, finding community/sense of belonging, mental health skills training, financial support, finding employment that works for their specific challenges and needs, mentors, spiritual guidance, legal assistance, services to help get out of an abusive situation, and lifestyle/health advice/services.
If you are a person who wants to help reduce the number of successful suicides, those examples above offer a ton of different areas you can be involved in to help improve the quality of life of those who struggle with suicidal ideation. Focus on what life-affirming things you can do to help people through a crisis and you WILL increase their chances of surviving the next one too. Be aware of the fact that, for a large percentage of people who are suicidal, their problems are long-term and often profound. They need long-term support. Without helping them get it, you are putting a band-aid on an arterial bleed.
Fourth Step of Suicide Awareness is Learning From the Source:
The truth is that most people who want to kill themselves would choose to live if they believed that their unbearable pain (physical, mental, emotional) could be significantly relieved for more than just a few days or months. Death wasn’t their first, second, or probably hundredth choice of solution to their dealing with their pain. It is the last one. They didn’t get to that point in a day, or a week, or even just a few months, and it will take more than that to help them find hope based on real long-term solutions and support.
I speak from both personal experience and from the experiences of 600 other people I surveyed who struggle with serious suicidal ideation.
If you’re interested in helping to lower the yearly rate of successful suicides, don’t think in terms of preventing death, instead, think in terms of pain reduction/tolerance and significantly improving the quality of life of those who are vulnerable to suicidal ideation.
Most importantly of all: ask the people you’re wanting to help what they actually need and want from you. That’s where true awareness starts. Ask questions of us, be curious, be willing to learn, be open minded. This kind of awareness will help reduce stigma against suicide which will, in turn, reduce the number of successful attempts.
Something I think is pretty great is that there are now “warmlines” that offer peer support for people struggling with suicidal ideation but who aren’t in an acute suicidal crisis. Talking to people who understand (from personal experience) what you’re going through can sometimes help you avoid an actual crisis. Spread the link!
The national suicide hotline is 988