In the Wake of Jr. Seau's Death: A Suicide Help Strategy Anyone Can Use

May 3, 2012 - PRLog -- In the wake of Junior Seau's death, I thought I should share my technique for dealing with potentially suicidal people.  I’ve had to talk someone down from suicide many times over my decades as a pastoral counselor.  This is not intended to train you to be doing this.  I am sharing what I do.

   Allison’s husband called me on the phone.  He was panicking and wanted his pastor’s help.  According to him, his wife was suicidal, and he didn’t know who to call.  I asked him to put her on the phone.

   The first thing I did was find out our she felt.  She did admit she was feeling suicidal, but she hadn’t taken any action on it.  That was the first order of business: make sure she was not in immediate danger of doing it.  If the feeling continued, she could do it, but she was not standing on a ledge or holding a fistful of pills.

   She really was feeling like taking her own life, though.  That’s pretty intense.  

WHY I NEVER DO NORMAL

   “Normal” in this case is to try to tell someone that things aren’t that bad.  “Normal” is to tell them that they have lots to live for, that they don’t want to do this, and that killing themselves will solve nothing.

   Here’s why I don’t do that.  First off, they know how bad things feel, and stacking “you’re an idiot if you think things are as bad as you think they are” I don’t see as helping them.  They know how isolated they feel, and they might have just had a horrific experience with someone who was supposed to love them.  As for whether it will solve anything, if what they are really after in the moment is for the pain to stop, it actually might solve that problem very well.

   If I argue with them and lose, I’ve made matters worse.  They know more about their lives than I do.  If I argue with them about their own lives and lose, it might cost a life.  It’s not safe to argue with someone about what’s going on in his life.  If they feel I am attacking their perception of reality, they are likely to really push their point.  Emotional people sometimes do this is dramatic ways.  In this case, it might be to kill themselves.

CREATE CONNECTION

   The first thing I do is create connection.

   I ASK them how they feel, and then I ask them WHY they feel that way.  I let them tell their story.  My first goal is to let them know they have a voice, and that someone is listening.  I let them work through their story as much as they are willing tell me until it seems that they are done telling their story or they are looping back over the story a second time.  If they do that, I interrupt them.

   I tell them that I agree with them.  “That” is terrible.  “That” would be incredibly painful.  I admit that if “that” happened to me, I’d be desperate hurt (or angry, or frustrated, or overwhelmed), too.  Even just the use of the word “that” is to start to externalize it.  I want them to see it as something that could happen to me, too, and I agree that HOW THEY FEEL makes perfect sense.

   Usually, I will even say something like “If I felt the way you’re feeling right now, I’d probably want to kill myself, too.”  I admit if you diagram that sentence, you realize that what I’m actually agreeing with is that if I felt like killing myself, I’d feel like killing myself.  The actual events that have lead them here might not be bad enough to get me to that feeling, but if I did get to that feeling, well… that’s how I’d feel!

   The basic strategy here is to join them.  Let them know that how they feel is reasonable under the circumstance.  I let them know that they are not alone, that they are not crazy, and I help them look at it in terms of maybe it happening to someone else – me – which helps them feel that their situation might not be unique in all the universe.

ASK SOLUTION QUESTIONS

   When they seem to be listening (and people almost always listen when you’re agreeing with them), I ask them a question.  I use something like: “I wonder if anyone else has ever gone through something like this.  If this happened to me, I wonder if there would be any answers out there.  What do you think?”

   If I’ve already gotten them to think about the possibility that it could happen to me, or some version of it could happen to me – they will almost always agree.  Very few events are SO unique that no one has ever been through anything even remotely like it before.

   “I wonder what they might have done to get through it?” is my next question.  “Do you have any idea?”  Maybe they do.  Maybe not.  If they do, then you’re already on to the next step.  If not, then you keep going.  The goal is to get THEM to think of solutions.  If they think of it themselves, they will not argue with it.  That’s why that’s the goal.

   If you need to continue, then you go to something like, “I wonder how we’d find out…”  (“Notice the “we” like it’s her and me vs. the problem.)  They might not know.  Then muse aloud “I wonder where we’d even start with something like that?”  (If you think they might really be stuck, feed POSSIBILITIES, not answers!  “I wonder if you could look that up online, or if there’s a book on it or something.  What do you think?”)

   The goal is to get THEM to start THINKING.  When you’ve engaged your logical mind, it helps separate you from the raw emotion of how you were feeling.  A focus on solutions or possibilities breaks someone out from the “I need to end it all now” feeling to “maybe there’s another way” feeling.

   All I need to achieve is for them to start to THINK that there is another way, or at least that it might be worth looking in to.  When I can tell that they are still feeling that killing themselves now would still end their pain, I will even acknowledge that.  I will suggest that if we were going to do a couple of possible solutions – look into some options or kill ourselves (yes, I use the “we” form), what order should we do it in?  We can always kill ourselves later, but if we do it now, we can’t check out any other options.  I ASK THEM which one makes the most sense for US.  (Sometimes they laugh, which always a good sign.)

INITIATE RESEARCH OR SOLUTIONS

   Once you have them beginning to think that there ARE options, start brainstorming with them.  NEVER tell them what to do, ASK.  Even if they ask you, just tell them a few things that pop into your mind, and ASK them if they think those sound like a LOGICAL place to start.  You always want to keep their logical thinking actively engaged.  

   Once I have them thinking about how to solve the problem, they are not only far away from immediate suicide, but they are looking forward to a future of fixing what’s wrong, getting past, learning more, maybe even growing beyond this.  

   If I can get them there, then I help them look at that more closely.  “I think (there’s that “think” word again) that it will feel great (I avoid “feel” language until I am confident I can get a positive feeling response) to find the other side of this.  What do you think?”  When they can “see” a time in the future with a good feeling, you’re pretty much done.

FOLLOW UP

   If someone was suicidal, I recommend further counseling.  If you end up in the middle of a situation with a suicidal friend (or parishoner, in my case), you want to have them follow up.  You might have gotten them away from the moment, but the whole situation of their life might still be close – and another trigger could put them right back here.  

   End with what is appropriate for the relationship.  I normally pray with my parishioners or someone I know is Christian.  I usually hug them.  I always affirm their value, and I ask them to get back to me with whatever answers they come up with.  That’s me based upon my relationships.  You do what’s appropriate to yours.

CONTACT: Scot Conway may be contacted through http://www.AgathosMinistries.org or http://www.MasterRevelation.com.  More on the subject in his blogs at: http://www.ScotConway.com.  Kindle books available at Amazon.com, search "Scot Conway."