September is suicide prevention awareness month. Suicide awareness campaigns highlight an uncomfortable and perplexing question about human behavior: why do people commit suicide?
The driving force behind most suicidal behavior is difficult to comprehend. It’s a style of thought that we instinctually want to push away. We want to argue against it, to defeat it.
I use the word “instinctually” advisedly; it is a fitting word. We instinctually want to survive, and to truly grasp what drives another person to consider suicide involves coming perilously close to endorsing the act – or so it seems.
As someone who has helped people overcome suicidal intent, it’s been my experience that allowing and accepting the thoughts and the feelings behind suicidal ideation is one of the best ways to combat them. It’s frightening business, and quite counterintuitive, but there can be great hope and power in allowing dark thoughts to exist, and in finding the meaning behind them. Let’s look at Tim’s story.
Tim*
Tim is a 48-year-old real estate salesman. Until recently, he has been reasonably successful, but in this bad economy his sales have declined dramatically. In fact, he has been forced to turn to his aging parents for help.
Tim is also approaching the end of his second marriage. He and Kathy have been together for just over six years, and the last three have been contentious. Their communication has dwindled to extended silences, punctuated mostly by bitter arguments over finances and family – Tim is still paying child support for his two children from his first marriage. Despite the best efforts he could muster, his kids have felt abandoned and now barely speak to him.
The problems seem insurmountable to Tim. Any one of them would be difficult to manage, but heaped upon him all at once, and seeming to grow worse by the day, the problems are so overwhelming that he doesn’t know how to begin to solve them.
Tim would never ask for help. He strives to be proud and self-reliant, and so the people in his social circle either don’t understand the extent of his problems or they have learned to avoid the topic. “I’ll be fine,” he tells them with a forced smile. “Things always work out!” His mind, however, is telling Tim a different story: Things won’t work out. I’m headed for divorce and disgrace. I’m going to die alone, broke, and unnoticed. I’ve become a burden to others, and I’m out of options.
In private, Tim has been contemplating a final and permanent solution to his mounting problems. It’s comforting for him to know that his pain could end with one pull of a trigger.
Problem-Solving Behavior
From the standpoint of someone who is not currently suicidal – which is most of us, most of the time – it is difficult to understand how a person could ignore survival instinct, disregard the good things in life, and foreclose every possibility of future happiness. Why can’t they see that people love them? Why don’t they understand that things will improve?
And if we have considered suicide ourselves in the past – which is most of us – it can be even harder to understand why they can’t shake it off. We want desperately for them to feel better.
Perhaps it is the perplexing nature of suicide that leads us to one of humanity’s old explanatory standbys: diagnosis and categorization. People who are suicidal are usually placed into categories such as “depressed,” “psychotic,” or “manipulative.”
That kind of diagnosing is done with the best intentions, I think, and with some reasonable hope of prevention. It works in some cases. For example, biological abnormalities like organic brain disease, medication reactions, or severe thyroid problems can make someone feel inexplicably suicidal. Problems like these have straightforward answers, and so proper diagnosis is vitally important.
But in the absence of an unequivocal medical diagnosis, categorizing suicidal behavior as something like “depressed” or “manipulative” doesn’t explain the problem and generally skirts the real source of suicidal ideation. There is a certain kind of thinking that fuels suicide, and for most of us it is a terribly difficult idea to sit with: suicide is problem-solving behavior. In the mind of someone considering suicide, the act may seem like an expeditious and effective way to eliminate pain.
The types of problems that drive suicidal ideation often result in an overpowering emotional experience, like shame, anger, or loneliness. People who turn to suicide are almost always in a state of severe emotional pain. Tim, for example, might view suicide as a permanent way to end despair over another failed relationship, or the shame of a faltering career. People turn to suicide when they believe that they are out of options, or when life’s difficulties outpace their current ability to respond.
If you are like me, you have a gut-level, defiant reaction to the idea that suicide solves problems. I want to sit down with Tim and convince him otherwise. I want to teach him that suicide doesn’t solve anything. But to Tim’s mind, suicide may seem like the only thing that will solve his problems. It’s an argument that I probably won’t be able to win. And ironically, trying to argue Tim in submission might even strengthen his resolve to end his own life.
Fortunately, it’s an argument in which I need not engage – assuming I can get past my own discomfort with Tim’s state of mind.
Acknowledging suicide as problem-solving behavior is uncomfortable, I think, because it appears to edge dangerously close to endorsing the act. Nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t have to agree with the desire to die in order to empathize with the pain that drives the urge – pain that the person perceives as inescapable, intolerably painful, and interminable (Chiles & Strosahl, 2005).
An alternative approach to arguing against suicidal ideation – that is, trying to eliminate thoughts such as this will end my pain – is to accept that the thoughts and feelings have a real basis. Thoughts of suicide represent an attempt to solve problems. As strange as it may seem, suicidal behavior represents a desire to make things better.
There is great power in acknowledging that. The willingness to tolerate that single, uncomfortable idea can open doors. It shifts the focus to the sources of pain, rather than the pain itself, and acknowledges a desire to solve those problems. With Tim, for example, putting words to the sources of his difficulties opens the discussion to other ways of repairing his relationships or getting his career back on track. Often, the simple act of verbalizing vague and overwhelming feelings shines a light of rationality on problems and expands our willingness to explore a broader range of solutions.
As is so often the case, fighting the mind’s natural reactions only draws us further into the pain we’re trying to escape. Combatting our own minds – or the minds of others – obscures our higher selves and draws our attention away from higher reasoning abilities that can be our salvation.
Accepting thoughts about suicide creates the possibility of finding solutions other than suicide.
-IS
Please note: negotiating the tricky waters of suicidal ideation is complicated business and should always be referred to trained and competent professional. If you are considering suicide, please contact one of these hotlines before you do anything else.
References:
Chiles, J.A. & Strosahl, K.D. (2005). Clinical Manual for Assessment and Treatment of Suicidal Patients. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
* “Tim” is a composite sketch, not a real person. Any resemblance to a real person is purely coincidental.
As one that’s contemplated suicide, I really appreciate this perspective. If others could understand what drives one to consider suicide as an option and why those considering it don’t reach out, it could, possibly, make a life-changing moment in someone’s life.
People don’t reach out because others try to talk us out of it; tell us we’re crazy or weak; tell us God will punish us; tell us things will get better; tell us things can’t be that bad; etc. These things don’t work when one is in the midst of a myriad of problems that cause him/her to seek suicide as a viable option. It simply drives us further from you and from seeking help.
Life does get very big and very scary at times. Ending one’s life can actually become a viable way of ending the suffering–or so one thinks. No, I’m not crazy. No, I’m not trying to take the easy way out. In fact, to fully prepare for suicide, one has to face death in the eye and not be afraid of it. I was days away from carrying out my plan without my family or friend’s knowledge. I’m now thankful that I didn’t go through with it but, had Shawn not allowed me the freedom to express my thoughts and suicidal desires, I would have gone through with it.
The freedom to have those thoughts–even plans–and not be judged for them, was life-saving. It was safe to discuss my feelings and that took the terribly heavy burden off my shoulders. The not being judged and not having someone try to talk me out of it, allowed me to look at my problems differently and allowed me the choice to make other plans. Plans to continue therapy, continue healing, and continue with better problem-solving skills for my life.
I would like those reading this that know someone who is thinking of suicide, please, listen, don’t judge and get your family member or friend to a professional. (I strongly recommend Shawn.) For those contemplating suicide, please reach out. If you can’t reach out to a friend, family member, or religious leader, please find a professional that will not judge you but will help you look at things differently. (Again, I strongly recommend Shawn.)
Thank you, Shawn, for not judging me and for not trying to downplay my feelings. Thank you for giving me a safe place to talk it out. Thank you for giving me new skills and new ways to approach my problems. Thank you, Shawn, for saving my life.
Gosh, thank you.
My brother committed suicide last week. I am trying to fill in the blanks. I want to understand what was going on in his head. Someone described it to me as an uncontrollable spiral where the person finds more and more reasons that suicide is the answer. For my brother, I believe it was a very quick decision that no one saw. He went into the hospital a week ago saturday having a small stroke and kidney failure. He was released the following Thursday going to continue diaysis. We were all being positive and ready to give him a kidney if needed. He committed suicide the following day. Did not give it a chance.
Shawn, your article helped and I hope to find more answers.
I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. I hope you find the answers you are looking for.
I struggle on a daily basis and have since I was 7. That was the first time I tried to end it all. By the time I was 12 I begged God to take me home. I no longer saw the point of being here. Recently my whole world exploded in my face and my children were getting hurt. At that point it did not matter to me that I was also getting hurt as long as the children were okay. I have gotten safe but it is an up hill battle. My first though was to be safe and in my mind there was no place on this earth safe for the kids and I. I was told in not such a nice way that I was selfish to think of taking my kids out. In my mind all I wanted was for them to be safe free from hurt and pain. That was a really dark time for me and it has passed with the idea I would be hurting them and getting rid of the baby with the bath water idea. By ending the bad I end the good also. Next comes this idea that life is a gift I am now trying to figure out if I can return this “gift”. How in the world is life a gift? Thank you for writing this article. It gave me a new perspective I had not thought of before. I need solutions. A point to all of the hurt pain and torment I have endured this far. You are right I ran out of ideas on how to solve all the problems for they all came at me at the same time. Past and present exploded in a big bang. When you are in the moment you really forget every thing and there really seems to be no other way out. Thanks for your insight.
Thanks Daisy. I’m glad things are going better for you.
Shawn. As a colleague, I have to commend your bravery-as evidenced in your post and in the response from “grateful patient”. It take courage to hang in with someone who is seriously contemplating ending their own life, especially when you have responsibility for them. In sister’s post, we see the other part, the people left to try to somehow understand and accept such a loss (another post to write, Shawn?).
Anyway, I wanted to comment on the encouragement to explore one’s own shadow,as Carl Jung called it or, the dark side we all have. I wrote a related post called Unfinished Business. I think many imagine that life will be more comfortable if they avoid facing their deeper fears, wishes, troubles,and regrets. What I have found is that maneuvering your way through those dark waters with an attentive, sincere helper can be relieving and allow one to go forward instead of staying stuck.
Thanks Paula. Good point. There’s a metaphor within the Acceptance and Commitment community about trudging through the swamp in pursuit of values. Hopefully there’s something grand waiting at the other side of that swamp, but even if there isn’t at least we have the joy of knowing that we conquered fears and followed our values.
Shawn, That was very insightful. Now i understand the idealation of suicide. I would always wonder to myself how one could contemplate such a thought. Thank you for the clarification.
I think of killing myself all the time, I actually have this fantasy, whenever something is annoying me, and right now , i get annoyed quickly, I imagine that my finger is a gun, I point it to my head, and i shoot, then i pretend that nothing can hurt me.
I’m a female, i’m 24 years old, I was sexually and physically abused as a child. Since i was 17, I started to feel attracted to girls, which made more confused, and angry, because in my religion and culture its not acceptable to be gay, I have been thinking even more of killing myself ever since I started to notice my attraction to girls.
I get therapy and councelling in the gay center. I cut my arms, I cry all the time, and all i think about is that when i go to the next therapy session ill show my therapist my arms, but then when i arrive there i get scared and i hide them.
I was diagnosed by another therapist with severe depression, and wanted me to admit myself in a psychiatric clinic. I live in Germany, and he can’t admit me unless I admitted myself. It took me two months to decide to go to the clinic, and when i arrived, the emergency doctor made me think twice of getting admitted because he said this place is for seriously depressed people, and it looks like your problems could be solved without admission .. so I changed my mind ..
I was on anti depressants for a while then i stopped them because i couldnt afford them. and now my therapist in Germany thinks i don’t need them because my main problem is that i’m gay, and medications cant change that ..
I’m in pain …
I think of killing myself all the time, I actually have this fantasy, whenever something is annoying me, and right now , i get annoyed quickly, I imagine that my finger is a gun, I point it to my head, and i shoot, then i pretend that nothing can hurt me.I’m a female, i’m 24 years old, I was sexually and physically abused as a child. Since i was 17, I started to feel attracted to girls, which made more confused, and angry, because in my religion and culture its not acceptable to be gay, I have been thinking even more of killing myself ever since I started to notice my attraction to girls. I get therapy and councelling in the gay center. I cut my arms, I cry all the time, and all i think about is that when i go to the next therapy session ill show my therapist my arms, but then when i arrive there i get scared and i hide them. I was diagnosed by another therapist with severe depression, and wanted me to admit myself in a psychiatric clinic. I live in Germany, and he can’t admit me unless I admitted myself. It took me two months to decide to go to the clinic, and when i arrived, the emergency doctor made me think twice of getting admitted because he said this place is for seriously depressed people, and it looks like your problems could be solved without admission .. so I changed my mind .. I was on anti depressants for a while then i stopped them because i couldnt afford them. and now my therapist in Germany thinks i don’t need them because my main problem is that i’m gay, and medications cant change that .. I’m in pain …
Hi Anon,
I read your post last night and then woke up still thinking about you. Shawn is right, you know. There is a gut-level response in people that makes us want to argue with people that are brave enough to admit they are struggling with suicidal thoughts. Well, fortunately, I am entirely unqualified to help other people. Shawn can be all therapisty about it, but seeing as how I am just some random internet boob who you probably shouldn’t be listening to anyway, I am going to try to argue.
Free Advice Point One: Go volunteer at an animal shelter. Probably not what you were expecting me to say, right? The thing is, the animals need you. They have frequently survived abuse themselves and at the very least, they have been abandoned by their families. Self compassion is so hard. Compassion for these animals isn’t. You might find it interesting to know that I find it similarly easy to have compassion for your situation as I do towards these animals. Perhaps then your feelings about yourself are not “truths”, but a matter of perspective. Besides, what could be more Zen than sifting through the contents of a clay cat box? (Nothing in Germany that I am aware of.)
Free Advice Point Two: Have you read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl? It isn’t a long book and at least in the states, it is easy enough to pick up at a used book shop. I respect this book more than anything else I have ever read and I wish that anybody in as much pain as you describe could be given a copy.
Finally, this excerpt from Bill Bryson’s book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” always works at resetting my perspective when it becomes skewed.
“For you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It’s an arrangement so specialized and particular that is has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally underappreciated state known as existence….The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting-fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other point thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and go off to be other things. And that’s it for you. Still, you may rejoice that it happens at all. Generally speaking in the universe it doesn’t, so far as we can tell. This is decidedly odd because the atoms that so liberally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere. Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, a little calcium, a dash of sulfur, a light dusting of other very ordinary elements-nothing you wouldn’t find in any ordinary drugstore–and that’s all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is of course the miracle of life….So thank goodness for atoms. But the fact that you have atoms and that they assemble in such a willing manner is only part of what got you here. To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know it, you also had to be the beneficiary of an extraordinary string of biological good fortune. Survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business. Of the billions and billions of species of living thing that have existed since the dawn of time, most–99.9 percent–are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief but dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it….Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line["The tiniest deviation from any of these evolutionary shifts, and you might now be licking algae from cave walls or lolling walruslike on some stony shore or disgorging air through a blowhole in the top of your head before diving sixty feet for a mouthful of delicious sandworms."], but you have also been extremely–make that miraculously–fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth’s mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result–eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly–in you.”