In a far cry from the last post about how a relationship of two can sometimes "save" a person, here's a look at suicide which ultimately narrows the focus down to "just one": the suicidal person. (In this case, a veteran. Veterans kill themselves at a rate between two and four times that of the civilian population, according to a CBS News investigative report from 2007, linked here.)
With suicide, as experts note, it's not that friends and family members have ceased to exist, it's just that they are no longer in view to the person struggling with suicide.
"Once a man decides to take his own life he enters a shut-off, impregnable but wholly convincing world where every detail fits and every incident reinforces his decision. Each of these deaths has its own inner logical and unrepeatable despair." -- A. Alvarez, The Savage God.
From The Suicidal Mind, by Edwin S. Shneidman:
"The single most dangerous word in all of suicidology is the four-letter word, 'only.'" (Because suicidal thinkers have narrowed life down to "only" one way of looking at things, and only one option for coping, through exit.)
"The image of the diaphragm of a camera closing down on its tightest focus. In suicide, the diaphragm of the mind narrows and focuses on the single goal of escape to the exclusion of all else -- parents, spouse, children. Those other persons in the life are not forgotten; they are simply not within the narrow focus of the suicidal lens. Suddenly they are just not in the picture."
About what Shneidman calls "the closed world of suicide":
"One of the first tasks of any aspiring helper or therapist with a highly suicidal person is to address the constriction, to "widen the blinders," to let some light in so that the person can now see new angles. And, as we will see, the therapist must gently disagree with the death-laden premises of the suicidal person. The suicidal person's thinking pattern has constricted: often it is dichotomous with only two possibilities: yes or no, life as I want it or death, my way or nothing, greatness or annihilation -- the desperation of seeing only two alternatives, and not three or more choices as we do in ordinary life. In the camera of the mind, the suicidal film is limited to stark black and white."
For veterans: The National Veterans Foundation provides a hotline for veterans, which is open 7 days a week, from 9 am to 9 pm PST, and specializes in talking to vets about serious problems in their lives, of all kinds (1-888-777-4443). A friend who made use of the hotline this week said it was a very positive experience, where he was able to talk "brother to brother" to the combat veteran on the other end of the phone.
For more on our series on suicide and the combat veteran, click here.
