EMAIL: Just because some damn fool wants to end his life doesn’t mean I am going to stand idly by and let them do it. If I have to shoot them with a 12 gauge bean bag to knock them back from a ledge then so be it. I may even shoot them a second time after they’re down and safe for good measure. I need to buy a case of those now that I think about it. —Why you do something is every bit as important as the how and the what. —K. Aud
2016 08 22 Monday
Saving lives is a primary role of the Coast Guard. Normally this conjures thoughts of gale force winds and mountains of water battering a ship at sea while a bright orange and white helicopter dangles a crazy person over its pitching decks in the dead of night (I have the utmost respect for our Aviation Survival Technicians but they are operating with one or two mental breakers tripped). We are called to go against better judgment and drive our boats into the storm knowing that the margin for success is slim to none … all because we heard a static-filled broken “MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” in the dark.
It never occurred to me that the distress call I should be listening for might not come over a radio speaker. I never stopped to think that the storm we might be called to sail into might be someone’s personal life; that the garbled, static marred, cry for help might be them standing on the railing of a bridge. Everyone has been touched by death somehow, even if it was something as simple as a beloved pet. That is hard enough to deal with on its own. When that death is self-induced, the pain is so much worse.
Up until recently, I have always viewed suicide as the coward’s way out. The utmost selfish act a person could undertake. Mostly because of the damage it caused in the lives of loved ones. I’m not sure where along the line I developed such a visceral reaction, but it has been with me a long time. Having said that, I fully acknowledge that there are extenuating circumstances such as self-sacrifice to save another, death with dignity, DNR requests, and cultural norms outside of the traditional Abrahamic religions. Knowing this, I have still carried that negative bias for the past twenty-five years.
This past Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to participate in an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) workshop. It provided a new insight into what drives people to the point where they want to end their lives. It gave me a few simple tools to leverage against their pain, confusion, and hopelessness. There were graphs, statistics, and diagrams; a three-phase rubric with substeps and guidance through each phase, from talking them back from the edge to having a plan in place to prolong their life. It was infinitely complex and fluid but at the same time elegantly simple.
Pay attention to those around you; look for changes in their behavior. Those changes are the first signs that something is wrong. Engage them, ask them what’s going on. Establish what the problem is and help them move forward.
This is an oversimplification but it covers the whole range of possibilities from a friend calling you up and saying “Hey, can I come over? I’ve got something I need to get off my chest,” to walking up to a person on the edge of a bridge and saying “Howdy, I’m K.C. Got a minute to talk?”
Every human has their breaking point. Often, the stronger the individual is the more violent the break. As self-aware animals, we are constantly driven by our instincts to survive. We have to fight daily to exert control over those base impulses. When we get stressed that control becomes harder to maintain and the animal gets closer to the surface. Socially, we aren’t trained to deal with that animal when it finally claws its way out. What do animals do when they are stressed? If they can’t fight it, they try to escape it. Suicide is a twisted interpretation of our base survival instinct to escape the environment that is causing pain and discomfort. It isn’t rational or right, it is a solution to a problem. More often than not it is the wrong one.
Do I still have a dim view of suicide? Yes, but not because I feel the person was a coward. In retrospect, I feel that I have failed for not recognizing the mayday calls from friends and shipmates for what they were. I will be able to forgive them eventually, but it will take time. However, I doubt I will ever forgive myself for not being there when all they needed was someone to hear them.
I ran across this a while back but have not been able to find the original author; it is something I re-read on occasion to remind myself that there are other folks out there in need of help:
“I don’t like the phrase ‘a cry for help’. I just don’t like how it sounds. When someone says to me, ‘I’m thinking about suicide, I have a plan: I just need a reason not to do it,’ the last thing I see is helplessness.
“I think: Your depression has been beating you up for years. It has called you ugly, and stupid, and pathetic, and a failure, for so long that you’ve forgotten that it’s wrong. You don’t see any good in yourself, and you don’t have any hope.
“But still, here you are: You’ve come over to me, banged on my door, and said ‘Hey! Staying alive is REALLY HARD right now! Just give me something to fight with! I don’t care if it’s a stick! Give me a stick and I can stay alive!’
“How is that helpless? I think that’s incredible. You’re like a Marine: trapped for years behind enemy lines, your gun has been taken away, you’re out of ammo, you’re malnourished, and you’ve probably caught some kind of jungle virus that’s making you hallucinate giant spiders. And you’re still just going, ‘GIVE ME A STICK. I’M NOT DYING OUT HERE.’
“‘A cry for help’ makes it sound like I’m supposed to take pity on you, but you don’t need my pity. This isn’t pathetic. This is the will to survive. This is how humans lived long enough to become the dominant species.
“With NO hope, running on NOTHING, you’re ready to cut through a hundred miles of hostile jungle with nothing but a stick, if that’s what it takes to get to safety.
“All I’m doing is handing out sticks.
“You’re the one staying alive.”
So, if you need a stick, I have plenty.
