How to Save a Life pt. II: The Question
So you have been told about the ways that depression and suicide affect people throughout the world. You even feel for them and understand how difficult it must be to go through something like that. But you don’t interact with anyone who feels that way.
I work with students every day from wide and varied backgrounds. Whenever I ask who has been affected by suicide, every hand goes up. This is not a passing phase. It is something that you will have to interact with. Chances are, you have already been affected by suicide in one way or another.
So how can you get involved?
It’s not time to mess around. So let’s get to it.
Helping address this situation means you have to start looking for the signs of depression or suicidal ideation (a fancy way of saying “thinking of suicide”). This is going to be different for every person, but there are some common themes.
One of the big things is the way a person changes. When a person is considering suicide, they are thinking about taking their own life. This is not something they will take lightly. As a result, they will change their behavior as their mind and heart begins to wrestle with this concept.
Look for the ways that someone is isolating themselves, giving away their possessions, or giving lengthy and personal goodbyes. Pay attention when someone changes their normal behavior too. Like the guy who is always talking to everyone and is a part of every party. Are they all of the sudden sticking to themselves? Do they no longer seem so energetic and full of life? These are all warning signs of depression and possible suicidal thoughts.
What’s another sign? Talking about death or suicide. This is a big decision and they will want to talk about it, even if they don’t address it directly. Often times a person will reach out to their loved ones and discuss ideas surrounding concepts of mortality. By itself, this is not always a sign of suicide. But it never hurts to consider what might be going through their head, especially if there are other signs to go with it.
It’s important to mention that there is no one demographic or kind of person who is depressed or suicidal. They are not always the obvious person. Sometimes it's quite the opposite.
Someone from my own high school committed suicide several years ago. I was not close to him personally, but with a school of 500 or so students, I knew him. He was the popular one. He was a gifted athlete and took part in almost every social group he could. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. And he took his own life.
He didn’t fit the traditional demographic for who should even be depressed. But it happened and it happens all the time. If you want to figure out if someone is considering suicide, don’t assume they will represent this in the way they act or talk or even dress.
Take a look at these potential warning signs to better understand what to look for:
So now you know a bit more of what to look for. Great. Then what? What happens when you actually start to notice the signs?
You have to have a conversation. At its most basic, it is just one person caring for another. It’s just talking. It’s easy to get side-tracked and start to question what you are doing, if you messed up the signs, or if you are going to make things worse.
One of the things I have learned in my years working with mental health issues is that you will never put the thought of suicide in a person’s mind. If you are asking the question, you aren’t going to somehow Inception them and plant the idea. If they don’t have the thoughts already, they will be encouraged to know that someone cares about them. If they are having the thoughts, your question will not make things worse. It will only open the door to help.
So now you just have to ask the question. It is harder than it might seem. To some, it will come naturally. For most others, it is something that needs to be practiced.
Each year, I train staff members on how to ask this question. We use scenarios to help get some hands-on experience. Almost every person (and these are people who are receiving extensive training on the subject) fails to actually ask the question. They ask vague or general questions that hint at the idea but they never actually ask the question.
“Are you thinking of killing yourself?”
“Have you been having thoughts of suicide?”
These are difficult things to ask when you are actually looking at someone face-to-face. So practice. Ask the questions right now. Put yourself in the moment and ask the question. Practice it in front of a mirror. Even better, find a friend and work on it together.
Practice.
The problem with vague questions is that people can give vague answers. This is a deeply personal thing for someone to have floating through their mind. They have to know that you actually care. By not committing to a solid, straight-forward question, they will not commit to a solid, straight-forward answer.
Ask the question! Then listen to what they have to say. You might be wrong and they might be fine or going through a depression that is not related to suicide. That still gives you something to talk about and a way to help. Then again, they might say, “yes.”
So what do you do when your loved one or even a stranger tells you that they are considering suicide? It’s time to give them some help.