The problem we have is we are trying to tell a person they should care about what God is going to do with them for eternity. Their question is, where’s God now? And I think they have a point. This wonderful but elusive God that doesn’t do anything basically except watch us and judge us, and then after we’re dead we get the feedback? That’s the Bad News.
If we actually knew how to invite God to work in our lives to the point where we are all walking gospels – which theoretically if we weren’t so hard-headed we would be – then we would know how to listen to and comfort somebody rather than take an already confused individual and tell them they should care about about a God who only cares about what happens to them after they die. If that’s the case, then maybe they should go ahead and do it so they can finally meet this “God.”
The main things you have to remember with suicide cases is listening, and empathy. It is almost always unwise to offer any suggestions especially at first. You need to listen and reflect back to them, “so were you feeling more angry, or just left out when that happened?” Ask them these sorts of questions to verify you understand not only the story but how it made them feel. Ask intelligent questions, not just “uh huh” or “then what” like, “wait, was this the same guy you were talking about who had just yelled at you?”
And don’t say, “I know how you feel,” because you don’t, even if you’ve been suicidal yourself. You may say, “I felt pretty desperate once and it kept me down for months,” or if they have a particularly compelling story, “wow, I can’t even imagine what that would be like.” I’d rather “not imagine” than to say, “I know your feelings,” because as soon as you claim to know them you set a flag that may be hard to reset.
This could be the first time EVER that the person ever got to actually express him/herself. That’s because most people either react in horror, leaving them thinking “I knew you wouldn’t want to hear my story,” or tell them it’s a bad idea, “not only is life unmanageable, I’m stupid on top of it,” or try to fix them. These are the biggest obstacles the person may have met in trying to tell their story.
Rather, you might say, “wow, that sounds like a pretty bad situation. I can understand why you want to get away from it.” This validates them as thinking people – SOMEBODY finally heard that what’s going on in their life is worth escaping. But it does not validate the suicide because the next step if you have a willing caller could be, “I wonder how you could just get away from the pressure for a little while and maybe it would help you regain some sanity?” Asking as an “I wonder” question rather than a "you should … " statement opens their mind rather than making it more defensive. It says to them, “yes, you need to escape but maybe we don’t need a permanent fix to a temporary problem.”
You can sometimes tell them about “permanent fix to a temporary problem,” depending on how the conversation goes, but I’d be fairly sparing with it unless you get to know the person’s conversational style pretty good.
Do not preach to them like, “you need to have courage so you wouldn’t want to chicken out and end your life like this.” To them, courage is FINALLY getting it together and going through with their plans of self-destruct. To them, the fact they haven’t already killed themselves could be testimony to their cowardice. So don’t even throw around the “coward” thing unless you want to risk giving them the double-dog-dare.
I used to counsel suicidal children on a Youth Crisis Hotline. The idea is to empathize with them by listening and showing them you want to hear them out. Then you can try to reframe it – they may not have. But the first things is to hear the story. After that it gets more customized for each caller. Give them ideas without preaching. Questions are usually better than “answers.”
Oh, and don’t try to tell them about what killing themselves will do to their afterlife, unless THEY bring it up.
Alan
