Suicide And A Can Of Beer

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

SUICIDE AND A BEER BANK

This, despite a certain artistic presentation, is a completely real story, recorded by one of my clients. She came to me shortly after the suicide attempt. And we together with her for several months slowly retreated from the abyss of suicide.

In my opinion, there are several points in the recorded history that you can pay attention to.

• The first is that the suicidal episode was associated with depression, but occurred when the woman was already beginning to come out of it. From the point of view of the likelihood of suicide, the period of improvement in depression is more dangerous than the most difficult period: often in the “midst” of depression, a person is so deprived of the will to do anything that he does not take dangerous steps. When his condition improves, there is a will to live, or … to death. Moreover, the final decision may appear quite suddenly. Sometimes a few hours before his attempt to commit suicide, a person does not even think that he will do it.
• Second: directly during the suicide, the suicide feels only one desire - to stop the mental anguish at any cost. He can only think about his pain. At this moment it is useless to talk to him, for example, about what may be good in the future or about his loved ones - he will perceive this as a misunderstanding of his feelings. The first task at this stage is to listen to the client and talk to him about himself, to try to share and relieve his pain.

At the same time, the feelings of a suicide are ambivalent: the desire to live remains inside a person almost always. That is, he seeks not so much to die as to end the mental pain. That is why people often seek help after having already taken some suicidal action: by swallowing pills, preparing a rope, etc. And therefore, the intention to commit suicide can be felt by the person himself as something separate from him: as an inner voice, pushing him to the last step, sometimes even as an auditory or visual hallucination.

As the Lithuanian psychotherapist Paulius Skruibis writes :

If this is presented as some kind of psychological scales, then when the side where the pain outweighs, then suicide can be committed. But if we find a way to alleviate it at least for this moment, the desire to live immediately outweighs. And this is the whole possibility of help. I do not know of any way how you can increase the desire to live. How to raise it, if it is not enough, how to strengthen it. But there are many ways to relieve this pain, this anguish. If this is primary care, then even just a direct, open conversation about these feelings greatly contributes to the reduction of this pain

And third: from the story below, it is clear that the woman did not at all think that her death (all the more so) would become a trauma for loved ones. Self-blame and feeling “the worst in the world” is one of the hallmarks of severe depression. My client thought her suicide would be "good for everyone." And besides, she really had no idea what the consequences of the suicide of one of the parents for the children might be

Thus, at the first stage, the most important thing is to establish contact with the person and let him pour out his pain. But in further work we are looking for any resources within a person. The first "clues" can, if not enhance the desire to live, then still "play on the side of life." In working with this client, it was an awareness of the ambivalence of feelings and reliance on a healthy fear of self destruction.

Another such clue was the question: "Do you really want this for your children?", Which helped to restore the client's responsibility for her actions in relation to loved ones. At the same time, such a question should not increase the client's feeling of guilt for the fact that with his suicidal desires he wants to bring additional grief to his family. This becomes possible only when a deep, trusting contact is established between the client and the therapist, in which the therapist partially assumes the functions of a defender from the internal accuser.

So, the client's story

I will tell this story from my life as I remember it now, after a lapse of time. Perhaps, somewhere you think inappropriate humor. Humor is probably my way of dealing with fear. Because much longer than suicidal thoughts, fear of myself remained in me, of what I could do to myself.

Some time before that event, I had a prolonged depression. The type of depression when "everything in life is, but life is not." I had (and, thank God, I still have) a family - a loving husband, wonderful children. Had a favorite job (in kindergarten), varied interests. But all this did not seem to apply to me. It was as if I was not present in this wonderful life, and short periods of recovery when communicating with children at home and at work were replaced by acute despair or dull oppression.

But at the time that incident happened, I was already coming out of depression. For several weeks now I have felt an interest in life and some kind of involvement in it.

That day I felt an amazing surge of energy. I did a lot of things - from small daily ones to those that I put off for months. By the evening I was very tired, but could not stop. In the end, I almost forced myself to lie down on the sofa. The house was quiet - the youngest son was reading something in the other room, there was no one else. I felt sad, tears came.

And suddenly, quite suddenly, the sadness disappeared, the thought arose: “That's enough! No more tears. It will be destroyed! I felt tremendous relief, it became almost fun. All problems have been finally resolved.

I was in no hurry. First, I told myself in detail who would get better when I was gone. It's time for the youngest son to grow up, and I keep him in an infantile state. And my husband becomes completely depressed with me. At work, he is very successful, but in all other matters he clings to me like a child and demands attention all the time. And I am to blame for this! And the eldest daughter will hardly notice, probably, that I am gone. True, we are very close, but, unlike me, she is completely independent in life and does not cling to anyone. It is even more useful for children in kindergarten if their teacher changes, otherwise I spoil them very much. And I do all the other things so ineptly that it is better to let them go to someone else.

I formulated all these thoughts clearly and definitely, in short, capacious phrases. The beauty! At least write it down. But this is no longer necessary.

Gradually I began to hurry - there were still a lot of things to do, but I had to be in time before my husband arrived. I made dinner quickly. Then the husband, of course, will have to learn how to cook himself, but still, let everything be ready on the first evening. Come home from work tired, let him eat in peace. The thought that he might not have time for food that evening somehow did not occur to him.

I called my eldest daughter. Businesslike, briefly: “How are you? - Fine. - And everything is fine with us. Don't forget to stop by your grandmother tomorrow. - Yes I remember.

I wrote a note. Actually, I didn't want to do this (it smells like romanticism, but here everything is usual, everyday), but I wrote so that no one would suffer, thinking - why, but why, so that everything would be immediately clear.

I put on sneakers - it was not enough for the slippers to fly in all directions! She threw a large shawl over her shoulders. And all the time there was one very cheerful and even joyful thought: “That's it, no more tears! This must be destroyed!"

I went out onto the stairs. It would be better, of course, from my window, somehow more sincere, but my apartment is on the second floor. It is difficult to do everything “to the top!”. I began to check on which floor on the landing the window was open. January, all windows are closed. Finally, I found it - between the 5th and 6th. Also a bit low, of course, but if you try …

The window was ajar, and a can of beer stood on the eaves in the snow. Looks like someone set her to cool. That is why the window was open.

I pulled a handkerchief over my head. It was such a strange idea: I’m going to fall right in front of the entrance. They can quickly figure out from which apartment, call her, the son will come out - so that he does not see a broken head and knocked out teeth.

I climbed on my knees on the windowsill, opened the window wide, wrap my head around the table …

And then suddenly someone came out of the apartment on the 6th floor. Maybe just behind my can of beer. And when he saw me on the windowsill, the man shouted: "Hey!" and made a movement towards me. He must have decided that I wanted to steal his beer.

And instead of jumping out, for some reason I quickly climbed down from the window and rushed down the stairs. I was scared that he might have time to grab me. And the head was not wrapped up yet …

Oddly enough, this story did not end at this moment. Then, running down the stairs, I knew for sure that "it will be done." Not now, so a little later. But at home it turned out that my husband had come, then he didn’t go to bed for a long time, then I was overwhelmed … And only the next day, fear began to break through. I managed to show my husband that something was wrong with me ("I'm a little out of shape today"), cry and, finally, at least partially get scared. I didn’t want to live, but I was afraid to die and was afraid of the one inside myself that so fiercely wanted to destroy me. So, holding on to my fear, I slowly, for several weeks, retreated from my decision. It was like a man suddenly finds himself on the edge of an abyss, and his feet slip and pebbles fall down. And the person walks away, without taking his eyes off the edge, interrupting his breathing and hardly feeling support with his foot. And only after moving some distance, you can finally turn around, breathe and see where the path is.

It was a few years ago. Much has changed for the better in my life since then. But sometimes I still feel the fear again that I will hear the order to self-destruction inside me. After all, not every time someone's can of beer will stand outside the window …

Paulus Skruibis (Paulius Skruibis) - Doctor of Social Sciences, President of the Lithuanian Emergency Telephone Association, Director of the Youth Line Support Fund, lecturer at Vilnius University, author of a number of works on suicidal behavior and suicide prevention.