Best way to make someone who wants to die not want to die is to give them a reason to live. (…not verbally.) Often that just means taking things off their plate that are too big or too heavy, and then sticking around for the fallout as they try to paradoxically claw that weight back onto them. Because they got comfortable being smothered whether they knew it or not and feel naked without their rock.
Also. Controversially, and contrary to my point above….dont try to reassure them if they tell you they want to die. Don’t try to list off the reasons they should stay, cause they’ll just double down on why they don’t want to or feel like they can’t. Agree with them, to a fault. People who want to die want to euthanize themselves, effectively. They want to not suffer. That’s the goal. Causing more suffering or trying to be emotionally manipulative doesn’t do shit.
So agree, from that premise. “Oh, I see. How kind of you, to want to end your own suffering. No, truly, it IS a kindness. Do we not call it so when we put our pets to sleep, or let grandma die with dignity on hospice? You are trying to offer yourself that grace, and that is about the kindest thing I think anyone could do for themselves.”
I have repeated some version of the above to most the friends I’ve had call me at 3am, clinging to one last thread of hope and desperation to be seen. I have acknowledged this desperation, too, with more mixed results… depends on the person and what attachment they had to me.
But EVERY SINGLE PERSON I have told this has had an epiphanous reaction, a realization that if they can do that much kindness for themselves, then maybe they can be open to other kinds of self-compassion too. Like letting themselves rest. Like letting themselves be human.
On the record, I did not learn this from therapy, but lived experience. I WISH someone had told me that, and I didn’t need to put those pieces together by trial and error and, yes, being put on a very unhelpful lockdown to divest me of even more autonomy and control of my life…which did the very opposite of help.
Anyways. Three things usually are at the root of most suicide attempts:
1. Feeling overwhelmed, too much going on in life or you don’t have the mental or physical energy to make decisions or think clearly and critically
2. Feeling helpless to control yourself, your life, or your environment. Often tied to the first, but not always.
3. Lack of social bonds. Which is why social attention doesn’t work for long. As my husband puts it, “You need the oxytocin, gremble.” Oxytocin is THE bonding hormone. Every human alive makes it. Some don’t have receptors capable of receiving it, or that don’t process it correctly (psychopathy, and to an extent, sociopathy/ASPD, NPD, certain types of Dementia, and Schizophrenia) but every human brain produces it.
The last one is probably the most significant one, or at least has the largest margin of predictability in terms of outcome. I can’t find the damn study because google is being stupid about it (is it just me or have they gotten worse about burying scientific data lately?) But people with one or more significant social bonds are not only less likely to commit suicide, but they’re far FAR more likely to choose less “violently lethal” methods like guns or jumping in front of a train.
I dug into that research after looking at a facebook reel that mentioned that women attempt to comit suicide more often than men do (true) but are less likely to succeed because they choose “softer” methods. (Also true). But something about that didn’t quite add up to me, (nor the implication that women just don’t have access to those violent ends…literally 90% of the hunters and handgun owners I know are women) so I looked into it, and the truth was simply that women are more likely to have pets, children, or significant others when they do attempt. Men that commit suicide successfully overwhelmingly come from single-parent homes, are 20-40, and live alone, with a close follow up on 40-60 year old men that are recently divorced or separated. There was no data on that for the type of work they did, but blue-collar men are far more likely to commit suicide than white collar ones and that’s been true for a very long time.
Don’t add to the weight. Don’t add to the pressure (unless and until they ask for it.) I understand how distressing that can be, especially when you’re trying to convince someone to leave a bad situation. But it is also true: you can not reason someone out of something they did not reason themselves into, and that you can not save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.
