Thank you, cvk, for your encouragement and advice, especially for your prayers, and for sharing the thing that kept you going during your dark time, the very everyday yet miraculous and wonderful sight of a squirrel scampering around a tree!
I would like to reassure you about myself, if that’s needed, by saying that I have had much help not only with friends, but with medication and—I think more importantly—talking to professionals. I’ve gotten used to talking about the grim midnights of my past, though it’s not something I bring up every day. I assure you that I understand there’s hope for me, and I have been doing much better than I have been for more or less the last three years.
Thinking about how difficult it is to talk about such times, however (at least at first), has led me to caution giving more advice, this time (getting back to the original topic of this discussion) not just exclusively for the suicidal.
First, to those in a spot where they can’t go on, be willing to share your predicament with those who might be able to help or console you, with close friends and, if needed, professional help. Although it’s difficult enough, it might be the one thing you can do to help yourself. Who to talk to would vary, I’m sure, depending on the circumstances and unique place of pain in which you can’t go on. In my experience professing the gravity of your predicament, your frustration, confusion or pain, having someone to listen, can help a lot.
My second and final chunk of advice is for potential listeners to those who can’t go on. When someone breaks down for an unusual, prolonged extent, many people, even people close to the suffering soul, have difficulty understanding his or her predicament. It’s difficult, maybe impossible, if you haven’t had the experience, to understand the genuine gravity of someone’s condition when they can’t go on. Certainly, everyone has times when they feel they can’t go on and have even succumbed to this feeling, but not everyone experiences an inner sense of difficulty so overwhelming that it becomes crippling for an extended amount of time. Even so, the fact is some people do experience such an extended, inward dehabilitation, and we must not easily dismiss it as a foolish overreaction when it topples any of our brothers or sisters to the ground.
Simple, unempathetic advice doesn’t help when people can’t go on. It can actually make things worse. I’ll tell a story about my dad to illustrate. I heard this story for the first time after I myself had fallen to feeling incapacitated. Before I was born there was a time where he found himself mired in the sheets of his bed for longer than a week, not working, not confronting the world. One time his brother came over and told him, I think even hollared at him, to essentially snap out of it, get out of bed and get to work. My dad didn’t snap out of it. Not that night. He had already been feeling guilty to find himself not snapping out of it, and hearing his brother made him doubt the gravity of his predicament even more than he already did. He only felt more guilty, more torn. For a while it deepened his depression, leaving him iller equipped to gradually get out and get back to life. We all need to be prodded by others at times. Others’ pushing can help us to persevere, to try when we’re tempted to give up, even guide us to accomplishments we never thought we had in us—but when someone becomes overwhelmed until she’s incapacitated, pushing while she’s in this state might only push her backwards.
If you’re not sure you can supply any helpful advice, the least you can do to help is listen. Listening might be the least you can do, but it is not little itself, it can be a tremendous gift. Listening might seem insufficient, even passive, but it’s actually a very active kind of help. Be there to listen. And before that offer to listen. Don’t avoid the subject, propose being a listener; confront your friend with the option of sharing. It could make sharing easier, when this, much like offering to listen, is an intimidating venture.
Part of why I said earlier that it’s difficult to give advice on this topic is because misguided, unempathetic advice abounds, and it does less than help those who can’t go on.
Nevertheless, I think this discussion board is a great opportunity to post thoughtful, careful and genuinely helpful advice for those who can’t go on, or have yet to find themselves in such a position.
I should have qualified further in my first entry that I had wanted to say something I felt was important about the life-threatening variety of not-being-able-to-go-on, but that’s not the only variety. I didn’t want to redirect this line of postings to speak exclusively about the suicidal, and I hope this discussion can continue to offer beneficial replies to Kirsten’s original prompting.
CaptainBako
Jun 19 2003
09:44 pm
Thank you, cvk, for your encouragement and advice, especially for your prayers, and for sharing the thing that kept you going during your dark time, the very everyday yet miraculous and wonderful sight of a squirrel scampering around a tree!
I would like to reassure you about myself, if that’s needed, by saying that I have had much help not only with friends, but with medication and—I think more importantly—talking to professionals. I’ve gotten used to talking about the grim midnights of my past, though it’s not something I bring up every day. I assure you that I understand there’s hope for me, and I have been doing much better than I have been for more or less the last three years.
Thinking about how difficult it is to talk about such times, however (at least at first), has led me to caution giving more advice, this time (getting back to the original topic of this discussion) not just exclusively for the suicidal.
First, to those in a spot where they can’t go on, be willing to share your predicament with those who might be able to help or console you, with close friends and, if needed, professional help. Although it’s difficult enough, it might be the one thing you can do to help yourself. Who to talk to would vary, I’m sure, depending on the circumstances and unique place of pain in which you can’t go on. In my experience professing the gravity of your predicament, your frustration, confusion or pain, having someone to listen, can help a lot.
My second and final chunk of advice is for potential listeners to those who can’t go on. When someone breaks down for an unusual, prolonged extent, many people, even people close to the suffering soul, have difficulty understanding his or her predicament. It’s difficult, maybe impossible, if you haven’t had the experience, to understand the genuine gravity of someone’s condition when they can’t go on. Certainly, everyone has times when they feel they can’t go on and have even succumbed to this feeling, but not everyone experiences an inner sense of difficulty so overwhelming that it becomes crippling for an extended amount of time. Even so, the fact is some people do experience such an extended, inward dehabilitation, and we must not easily dismiss it as a foolish overreaction when it topples any of our brothers or sisters to the ground.
Simple, unempathetic advice doesn’t help when people can’t go on. It can actually make things worse. I’ll tell a story about my dad to illustrate. I heard this story for the first time after I myself had fallen to feeling incapacitated. Before I was born there was a time where he found himself mired in the sheets of his bed for longer than a week, not working, not confronting the world. One time his brother came over and told him, I think even hollared at him, to essentially snap out of it, get out of bed and get to work. My dad didn’t snap out of it. Not that night. He had already been feeling guilty to find himself not snapping out of it, and hearing his brother made him doubt the gravity of his predicament even more than he already did. He only felt more guilty, more torn. For a while it deepened his depression, leaving him iller equipped to gradually get out and get back to life. We all need to be prodded by others at times. Others’ pushing can help us to persevere, to try when we’re tempted to give up, even guide us to accomplishments we never thought we had in us—but when someone becomes overwhelmed until she’s incapacitated, pushing while she’s in this state might only push her backwards.
If you’re not sure you can supply any helpful advice, the least you can do to help is listen. Listening might be the least you can do, but it is not little itself, it can be a tremendous gift. Listening might seem insufficient, even passive, but it’s actually a very active kind of help. Be there to listen. And before that offer to listen. Don’t avoid the subject, propose being a listener; confront your friend with the option of sharing. It could make sharing easier, when this, much like offering to listen, is an intimidating venture.
Part of why I said earlier that it’s difficult to give advice on this topic is because misguided, unempathetic advice abounds, and it does less than help those who can’t go on.
Nevertheless, I think this discussion board is a great opportunity to post thoughtful, careful and genuinely helpful advice for those who can’t go on, or have yet to find themselves in such a position.
I should have qualified further in my first entry that I had wanted to say something I felt was important about the life-threatening variety of not-being-able-to-go-on, but that’s not the only variety. I didn’t want to redirect this line of postings to speak exclusively about the suicidal, and I hope this discussion can continue to offer beneficial replies to Kirsten’s original prompting.