Have you ever thought about ending your life?
Have you known anyone who has taken their own life, or at least attempted? Do you know what it’s like to have suicidal thoughts? Is suicide prevention something you’re passionate about?
I love asking questions I already know the answer to, that answer for most of us is a sad yes. Suicide is on the rise and most of us have known some who’s tried or who have even taken their own life. And if we get really honest with ourselves, you most likely at some time had thoughts of ending the pain of life.
That’s the bad news, but there is also good news. There are more and more programs springing up all the time to help educate and make people aware of this growing problem.
The other day, a friend, Taryn, who runs the Western division of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, went to the bank. Outside were two girls who were talking to customers about Suicide awareness. They had recently experience the loss of a friend to suicide and wanted to do something to make others aware of the problem.
But apparently these two young ladies were not aware of the resources and organizations out there already helping. Taryn loaded them up with pallets and flyers about the various activities and programs around suicide prevention.
When you have lost someone, you want to help and these programs are a wonderful resource. However, there is something missing. Namely, what we need is more emotional support for those who are hurting and overwhelmed. Awareness is the first step, and then we need to provide tools, and connections to help people past their pain.
If you want to know more about an essential element to help prevent suicide, stick around and I will share what we are doing to make a difference.
Hi I’m Brett R. Williams, licensed psychotherapist and executive director of the Gathering. The Gathering of Good People is a nonprofit dedicated to providing emotional support to anyone and everyone who needs it. We do it by sharing the best clinical tools and ideas. But more importantly, we provide free online growth groups. It is these growth groups that are the essential piece that needs to be added in the suicide preventions story.
When I was in college, on our campus we had a suicide prevention hotline that serviced Santa Barbara, and the costal area of California. My major was psychology and I know I wanted to eventually become a psychotherapist like my father. So I volunteered where I could to get as much experience as I could. The hotline was a wonderful place to serve.
I was doing something for those in need, but I wished I could do more. People would call in, obviously in a state of panic and deep pain. Our job was to make sure they had resources to prevent them from taking their lives, and also to do what we could to help calm them down.
What I didn’t like about the position was that I would get back on the call lines and look over the logs and see the same people calling in again and again.
We were patching their problems for a moment but ultimately we were able to be the long term solution they needed. In fact, because we didn’t have resources to refer people to for ongoing emotional support it became a problem for the call center as well.
These people had nowhere to go, so they would call back which would then jam up our lines so we could not be as accessible to those in immediate crisis.
A lack of mental health support is a problem both on the front end and the back end of suicide prevention. People who are suicidal needs support, and the hot lines can’t provide it. And without emotional support the problems that drove someone to think about taking their lives, the pain that drives them will only bring them back to a hopeless place.
The American Psychological Association, (APA) has stunning research that shows there is a direct correlation between access to mental health provides in an area and the rate of suicide. Where there are limited providers there are higher rates of suicides.
To you and I, suicide is a huge problem. But to someone who is suicidal, suicide is a solution. When the pain of life becomes overwhelming, and someone lacks the tool and/or support to address that pain, suicide is a way out. It is a crappy answer, but to some it is the only answer they can see. Until we can come up with a better solution, suicide will stay an option.
At the Gathering, we want to help by providing emotional growth and support to anyone and everyone who needs it. We are providing free online growth groups that fill the gap in our sucidie prevention strategy.
Think of our growth groups like you would AA for alcoholics. AA is a resource that has proven to be highly effective in helping people find and maintain sobriety. How AA achieves its success is by providing peer led support groups that helps people work through their problems with a 12 step program.
Growth groups provide the same kind of support and resources for those going through emotional pain.
AA has it’s 12 steps, and our growth groups focus on our 7 human needs, and the 7 stages of life. We believe people are in pain, not because they are a problem, or somehow they are broken. Our groups center on the belief that our pain comes from unmet needs from our past as well as our present.
We seek to help people understand their needs, and find a way to meet those needs. But we also believe information alone is not the answer.
The way people change is through communities. Churches for hundreds of years held this role. Our church was our community and it held up the values and ideas that we all lived by. School came around and started to shift our thinking, literally.
Learning shifted from our parish to our public schools. The transition was blended as many churches started schools as a way to stay the center of our education. But eventually school took over as our seat of learning.
How do we learn now, and particularly about dealing with feelings and emotions? We attend an individual therapy session, or reverse monthly visits to our medical doctor. Education about emotions happens in one on one sessions with a therapist. Now, I am a therapist and can tell you it doesn’t work all that well.
People come into session and we discuss their issue, they get some insight and self understanding, and then they go home to continue to engage in their old habits and patterns. It’s not that they don’t get homework. I give homework to everyone I see, but most people don’t do the work.
Next week they are back and struggling with the same emotions as before. People don’t practice because they don’t have the infrastructure to support change. Most of my clients leave my office and go back to their normal lives and their old habits.
But I also lead a lot of support groups in my therapy. And there I see much more change. Almost daily the group members are reaching out to each other supporting one another and helping others to make changes.
Jim, not his real name, is a favorite. He texts through what’s app several times a week to share how his meditations or considerations are going. This helps the other members of the group to be reminded of their own practice. And I must say it helps me to remember to practice as well.
Aaron has a little different approach. He’s in my men’s group and he will share about his struggles and feelings. He is consistent in confessing his struggles, hurts, and frustrations. And when other members of the group are not willing to match his vulnerability he is quick to call them all out. “What’s going on, we are in this group to grow, let’s show up every day for each other and make the changes we say we want.”
By calling out the group to stay engaged it keeps everyone active and involved in their healing process.
I as an individual therapist can’t call all my clients everyday and make sure they have the emotional support they need to do their homework or stay vulnerable. I am not scalable. But groups are, and as we have seen with AA, groups help create change.
Change does not happen in isolation. We grow best together. So what’s the answer for suicide prevention? People in pain need to be connected to other people in pain.
To make a difference in dealing with the sadness, fear, and loneliness that grips us all, we need to all connect up with each other.
Hopefully, you can be there for someone in pain and help them see that taking their own life is not the answer. But it’s like giving a starving man a fish. For tomorrow he will be hungry again. People in pain will return to their pain unless we can connect with one another and create a support system that will in turn push us all to change.
There are three ways you can help.
1) if you are in pain, come join a community of growth and change. Be a part of our growth groups and create a shift in our life by using the power that comes from connecting with other people.
2) You can refer someone in pain to one of our growth groups. They are free and online, so the barriers to entry are extremely low. Send them to the GatheringofGoodPeople.com/community. Then follow up, make sure they are reaching out. It may take several tries but don’t give up on your friends, family, and people in pain.
3) Donate to support our Gathering of Good People. We are a 504 c 3, with a tax exemption for the IRS, so all your donations are tax deductible.
This will be the hardest for some and the easiest for others. For those who don’t have much it may be a sacrifice to give. So, for those of you who don’t have a lot to give, give of your time and help support the Gathering. Maybe come and be a group leader.
For those who have a lot, it may be easier to send support than sharing difficult feelings. Your donations are welcome, but to be honest if you want a return on your sacrifice give of yourself, and connect to others in pain. Gather with us and that’s when your heart will be blessed. Reach out to the Gathering at info@gatheringofgoodpeople.com and make a difference in other people’s lives that will make a difference in your life.