'Talking About Suicide Stops Suicide'

I want to thank Anne Nesbit for her column on suicide prevention and add something I have learned while working to do the same.

The thing I hear time and time again from survivors who have lost someone to suicide is that they didn’t see it coming. If only they had known their loved one was in such a crisis, they would have done anything to help.

There are often at least two reasons why we do not recognize the symptoms of severe suicidal depression. One is that people who are suicidally depressed are very skilled at masking their pain. Second, we are often so close to our loved ones that all we can see is the gray of the elephant in the room, not the elephant.

I was in crisis intervention in three states for seven years. I rode along with police officers and was on call three or four nights a week.

One of the things that I used to say to people when they would call the hotline, or I would have to intervene somewhere, was, “Can we just get a cup of coffee and talk? You can always kill yourself later.”

That did two things. It allowed them to understand they had control, but also let them know they could say anything, and someone would listen.

There wasn’t a single person I spoke with who attempted to harm themselves or someone else when I did that. I didn’t know what I was doing; I just knew that it was working. Every time I could talk with someone, we figured out a way that they didn’t have to kill themselves or someone else.

Depression kills. Talk saves lives.

Jud Morris, Raft Island