My Life on the Line So Again U Do U I ll Do Me

I propose my students to ask their suicidal clients, "What stops you? What stops you from killing yourself?"

Some are horrified. They see this almost equally a cartel, as if they are saying to a hurting, suicidal person, If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have done information technology already. What stops you?

To the contrary, asking the question "What stops you?" merely involves saying aloud what many suicidal individuals ask themselves constantly. And if they don't consider the question already, they should. Otherwise, they might not recognize hopes and fears that are reasons to keep fighting for their life.

Something has indeed stopped a living and breathing suicidal person from acting on their suicidal thoughts. If goose egg deterred them, they would not all the same be alive.

So, if you are working with a client who has thoughts of suicide, it can exist helpful to ask this simple question:

"What has stopped yous from killing yourself?"

A related question to enquire, as I discuss in this mail service, is:

"What are your reasons for staying live?"

And if you are reading this postal service because you yourself accept suicidal thoughts, please ask yourself these questions, too. The answers might fortify you, or even surprise you.

Reasons to Stay Alive vs. Reasons Non to Attempt Suicide

With my therapy clients and in my readings of research studies, I have observed two types of reasons people give for not killing themselves: life-affirming reasons, and fright-based reasons.

The life-affirming reasons center on the good things that tin still happen for the person if they stay alive: the things to do, the people to love, the sights to see, the hopes to realize. These are the reasons the person has to stay live.

Unfortunately, many people who struggle with suicidal thoughts are bereft of hope or pleasance, so there may be no life-affirming or hopeful reasons to go on going. In these cases, fright-based reasons tend to dominate.

The fear-based reasons for non attempting suicide centre on the bad things that can happen:

Their suicide try might non be fatal, and they might suffer lifelong injuries. Many people have shot themselves, overdosed, tried to hang themselves, and cut themselves only to suffer blindness, paralysis, brain damage, or disfigurement.

They believe they might go to hell. I hear this often. Many of my clients fear what might expect them after death.

They worry they will be reincarnated into a life of more hurting. This is another fear that has stopped some of my clients from killing themselves. They fright that escaping their pain in this life will consign them to more pain, and more than lessons to learn, in the next.

They exercise not want to hurt others. Some parents are deterred because they know that their suicide would make information technology more than likely that their child would dice past suicide. Others merely don't want others to injure.

They fear what would happen to their pets. Equally an brute lover, I get this. Many people don't have family who could care for their pets, and the thought of the pets going to a shelter – or even worse, being killed – horrifies them. Information technology would horrify me, besides.

By Dese'Rae L. Stage

More often than not speaking, I do non attempt to persuade the suicidal person with all the reasons not to stop one's life. To do then would invite a power struggle, ane in which we are on reverse sides: the persuader, and the i resisting persuasion.

Instead, I elicit from the suicidal person what their reasons are for still beingness alive. I assess how stiff these deterrents to suicide are, and I look for opportunities to reinforce them. But it'south best if the reasons come up from the individual, non from me. The person's respond is the but one that matters, because it is what has kept them alive thus far.

Beyond Fear of Suicide

Fear of what would come up after a suicide try is a powerful deterrent. Ideally, though, people volition have more than than that. They besides need promise. And they need a life worth living.

In my book Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals, I discuss many ways to help someone discover reasons for living, grow hope, find meaning, and better their quality of life. (Sorry for the blatant plug, but there are besides many tips to go into hither.)

The more reasons a person has to stay alive, the more answers the person has when asked, "What stops you?"

What if Nothing is Stopping You?

If you are thinking of suicide, you might take difficulty coming upwardly with reasons for living. You might not even be able to think of something that is stopping yous from killing yourself at present. If so, I ask two things of y'all:

• Get help. Talk to a therapist or a medico. Get to an ER. Let a family member or friend on your suicidal thoughts. Use a hotline, text line, or other resource listed at world wide web.SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources/#immediatehelp. It's very possible – indeed, likely – that your thinking is distorted by stress, trauma, or disease. With treatment or time, you lot might indeed exist able to identify many reasons for living.

• Examine what has stopped you till now. Even if you can't identify reasons non to impale yourself, if you're alive, something has stopped you until at present. What? As I describe above, the answers may reveal hopes or fears that are themselves reasons to continue staying live.

*

Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, is the author of "Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals," a psychotherapist and consultant, and an associate professor at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.

Copyright 2017 Stacey Freedenthal. Written for SpeakingOfSuicide.com. All Rights Reserved. Photos purchased from Fotolia.

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Source: https://www.speakingofsuicide.com/2017/09/04/what-stops-you/

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