In Cherished79’s excellent account of one of her suicide attempts (http://cherished79.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/suicide-the-taboo-word/), she told us her thoughts after an aborted suicide attempt: “I am berating myself. You are such a loser, can’t even get this right, why did you have to call [9-1-1], back to square one again, you had the chance, you blew it, another disappointment, a huge loser.” I thought very nearly the same thing after each of my failed or aborted suicide attempts. Not so much failure on the intervened attempts, but definitely a certain sense of loss; someone stole what was mine and now I’m trapped in hell.
“Why did I call 9-1-1?” Waking up in the hospital with charcoal stains all over my clothes, tubes sticking into me and wires of various kinds stuck to my skin, the only thing I could do was shake my head and curse myself for being such a coward. Not a coward for attempting to OD, but a coward for calling for help. TDHP will invariably say, “See, that proves the `suicide attempt’ was just a cry for help.” No, it doesn’t! It only proves that in a moment of weakness during a long night of empowerment, I failed myself. Alternatively, it was a last moment of clarity in a long night of despair. Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe.
The lesson hear is that people who try to kill themselves, really do want to kill themselves. It is incredibly embarassing when they don’t succeed. So please don’t pour salt on the wound by being angry with us or, even worse, belittling us. Afterwards,we may honestly say we are relieved to still be alive, but we are just as honest when we say we wanted to die. Don’t belittle the patient in your life by saying they didn’t really try to kill themselves, that it was just a cry for help.
“F&*% you! I’ll show you it wasn’t just a cry for help just as soon as I get out of here! And next time, I’m going to do it right.”
