This World Suicide Prevention Day, the call is to start the conversation. Not just the conversation about suicide itself, but the conversations about the things that come before it and, perhaps more importantly, the silence that often precedes them, the scrabbling to make sense, the often uselessness or impotence of words at the enormity of the feeling, and the paralysis that often sets in. The feelings we don’t know how to name, the thoughts we don’t want to admit to, the shame, the loneliness, the hopelessness, the overwhelm.
It’s fair to say we have got better at saying I’m struggling. We’re getting better at saying I’m not okay, but there is still a word that can make a room go quiet, and it’s suicide. I remember years ago going to give a suicide prevention talk in a college, and the principal pulled me aside and said, “Please, can you not say the actual word ‘suicide’? I’m afraid of it.” At least he was honest.
Perhaps changing the narrative actually means getting better at saying that word too, including it in the narrative when it really counts. Creating a different narrative around it means building confidence, knowledge and the ability to hold the enormity of the word’s meaning, facing it full-on, because this helps us build gravitas around it. Talking about it directly, naming it, doesn’t make it more likely, but it gives an awareness of the size of what someone is experiencing. It gives us a helpful reference point in what can be a sea of emotions.
Not every difficult feeling leads to suicide, not every suicidal thought leads to action, but being able to say it’s on my mind can still feel like saying the impossible, the unfathomable, and yet it’s a very good phrase for giving context to the level of feeling someone is experiencing.
We need to create more spaces in the world where someone can say, I’m having thoughts I don’t want to have and know that the person listening won’t panic, disappear or immediately try to make it better. We need to feel empowered enough to stay, to know we have the tools, the capacity and the courage to stay and hold the enormity with someone. Not just to hear it, to nod, but to really be there for it with open arms. To stay with the awkwardness, to stay with the silence, to stay with the tears, to stay with the things that are hard to hear, to stay long enough for someone to find the words. And maybe they don’t, but the staying demonstrates that we can be here for the hard things, we can be alongside them so they’re not alone. Let’s wrestle the enormity together. This capacity also makes it possible for it to be voiced and shared. If I know you can handle it, I’m more likely to share. The two go hand in hand.
Feelings are abstract. They don’t arrive neatly packaged in sentences. They live in the body, in sensations, images, impulses and thoughts that can be almost impossible to translate into words. So maybe our job isn’t always to find the right words for someone else. Maybe it’s to create enough space for them to be. To stay with the discomfort of another person’s feelings without rushing to remove it or name it. If we can do this for ourselves, we stand a much better chance of being able to do it for another person. This is what it means to do the work.
There is something important to know about suicidal thoughts. Sometimes the wish to die can be less about wanting life itself to end and more about desperately wanting an unbearable psychological state to end, wanting the pain, the overwhelm, the hopelessness, the feeling of being trapped inside something that feels impossible to escape, to stop. We want this part of us to die. That doesn’t make suicidal thoughts any less serious. Quite the opposite. But it reminds us why our capacity to stay with it matters. Can we untangle the feeling from the self by being present for it?
You don’t need a perfectly formed explanation or neatly shaped words to say where you are at.
You can say:
- I don’t know what’s wrong
- I’m not coping
- I feel shit
- I feel suicidal
- I’ve been having some really dark thoughts
- I don’t want to be alone right now
- I can’t explain how I feel, but it’s bad
- Something isn’t right
- I’m afraid
When someone does tell us something frightening, we don’t need to become therapists. We don’t need to have the answer. We don’t need to talk someone out of what they’re feeling or persuade them to look on the bright side. Be with what’s coming, listen well, and stay connected.
Things we can say when someone’s struggling to find the words:
- This doesn’t have to make sense
- I’ve got you
- I understand
- It’s not too big
- I’m here
- Nothing you can say right now will be too much
- I do not need to be anywhere else but here
- I’m not going anywhere
- Let’s not try and make it better, it can just be
- I’m not scared of the messy bit
- Do you remember when?
- Can I tell you a story?
- Shall we just sit and be cosy?
- You don’t have to work it out alone
Do not shy away from asking, “Do you feel suicidal? What does it feel like? What is in your head? Tell me what you are thinking.” Naming it is often incredibly relieving.
We don’t need to become experts in someone else’s pain. But we do need to become more comfortable in its presence. We do not need to be the fixer. We can be the person who can tolerate the feeling without abandoning the person who is feeling it.
Sometimes staying is the intervention. Not the whole intervention. But the beginning of one.
Because prevention isn’t only something that happens at the point of crisis. It happens in ordinary moments too: in the text that says, “How are you, really?”; in sitting beside someone who doesn’t know what to say; in calling again when they don’t answer; in noticing that someone has gone quiet; in making room for a difficult thought instead of rushing to replace it with a positive one; in showing someone that their pain doesn’t frighten us away.
We want people to stay.
Let’s show them that we can stay for the hard feelings, the hard thoughts, the hard times. Let’s stay longer. Stay more present. Stay with me.
Because we live in a culture that is very good at moving us on.
Cheer up.
Keep going.
You’ll be fine.
Look on the bright side.
Sometimes what someone needs is the opposite: someone who isn’t frightened by the darkness, who doesn’t need them to tidy it up before they can be heard, who can sit beside them and say, “I’m here. Take your time.”
Let’s model how to fucking stay.
Stay long enough for the words to come. Stay long enough for the truth. Stay long enough for help to become possible.
If you are the person who is struggling right now, you don’t need to wait until you can explain it beautifully. You don’t need to understand it completely. You don’t need to know what you need. Tell someone before you have the words, and have faith they will stay with you.
