Suicide

There was a time when suicide presented a very real option for me. At that time I needed the intervention of the Crisis Team to keep me alive. Life had disappeared from my eyes and my thoughts revolved around plans to end my life. Dark days.


But it wasn’t until my second episode of depression, whilst receiving therapy, that I started to address the issue of suicide. My therapist, Judy, wanted me to talk about it but it wasn’t up for discussion. I needed to keep my plans secret so that nobody could interfere with them … I didn’t want anyone trying to save me, or do anything that would take the option of suicide away.


In fact, if someone is really very determined over a long period of time to commit suicide there is very little we can do to stop them. I spent months in my darkest days researching suicide and honing my knowledge. It was amazing then and still is now to think about how dangerous the world around us is… just about everywhere you look there is the means… if there is a determined enough will.


If you personally have never considered committing suicide, reading this might all seem a bit alien. So to put some flesh on it… let me say that for me at least my plans took into consideration my courage, phobias, the likelihood of success, and considerations about who I wanted to protect from finding me. I also didn’t want to taint our family home with my death or anywhere else that meant something to us. I didn’t want to cause inconvenience, require much cleaning up, wreck the car for Alicia... Once all the considerations come into play you start to realise that this really is something that demands very careful planning.


Reading that last paragraph back now… I can see that the focused mind of someone intent on suicide is always going to be difficult to get to grips with.


With plans fully formed I started to become quite flippant about suicide and was using it as way to get through the days. I would head off to do something and say to myself… ‘well, if it doesn’t work out I can always end it’…. Or be worried about something in the morning but comfort myself with the thought that I could be dead by the afternoon. It sounds like a joke but I was deadly serious… and it got me through the day. It gave me the attitude I needed at the time to take the day on. In the same way that if you were punched in the stomach you might place your hand on that hurt to ease it in some way…. When a tormenting, anxiety filled thought charged through my head threatening to shut down my day… I would apply a suicidal thought like a sticking plaster and in anesthetised me.


I knew from my dabbling in psychology that suicide was a coping strategy, a kind of security blanket, and I also knew that of all coping strategies… it wasn’t considered a particularly good one.


My therapist did a very simple exercise with me and from that moment onwards I would never seriously contemplate suicide ever again. Maybe it appealed to the analytical side of me… but for whatever reason I just couldn’t square suicide with what I learnt that day. Some people say suicide is the coward’s choice… but judging people with that kind of ‘name calling’ never changed my attitude. What did reach me was when I thought about the specifics.


Take one instance when you have considered suicide… really had the will to take your life. What brought about that thought … what problem is causing the distress? How big is this problem… give it a number on a scale of 0 to 100? What about your reaction to the problem, suicide… how big a reaction is this on a scale of 0 to 100…the effect of suicide on you and everyone who loves you…. Finally, ask yourself this simple question… is the reaction proportionate to the problem? … And the answer is almost always… no.


What happens next was even more incredible for me. You see whilst suicide stays in play as a viable option it affects how you live each day… what you cope with using suicide as your security. Take that away, like taking away a child’s blankie, and something is going to have to give. For me it meant I was going to seriously consider for the first time changing the direction my life was going in… You see if you stop thinking about dying, and start thinking about living… you’ve got to start planning all over again.


I’m so sorry that I terrified my Alicia with the prospect of losing me. I’ll always be there for you.