How Do You Talk Someone Off The Ledge?

 

Though I have thought about staffing a suicide hotline as a volunteer, I don't think I could do it. I wouldn't know how to answer that question were it posed to me on the other end of the telephone line, "Why shouldn't I kill myself, right here, right now?" I'd probably end up saying something like, "I don't know...from what you've told me you have every good reason to. It doesn't really make sense to go on living. I mean, you shouldn't, but I can't tell you why you shouldn't." And that wouldn't be good.

Suicide is the "out" when you feel like there's no way out. When everywhere you turn, you hit a wall. It's an out we shouldn't allow ourselves, sure. You shouldn't get the abortion. Have the baby. You shouldn't throw in the towel with your marriage. Stay married. You shouldn't end your life. Just...I don't know. Just don't. I'd be so unconvincing.  

But for the person in it, what is real? Are they seeing through all the bs of unfettered optimism: "People care about you!" Yeah, prove it. "Your life is worth living!" Why? Are they seeing life as it really is with the blinders off? Or is it skewed, darkened, subject to temptation?

Maybe in a pinch, I would just let someone speak. Listen to them. Sometimes people just need someone to really hear them. We're always getting sold to, manipulated, exploited by advertisers, tugged by manufacturers for our attention, talked down to, talked at...but never really heard. Maybe someone on the ledge just...wants someone to listen. Again, I don't know. I'm afraid if someone wanted to kill themselves I'd probably say something to the effect of--"it's true. People really aren't there for you the way you may need them to be. It gets worse before it gets better. I don't know how you're ever gonna pay off that debt. Life really does just suck sometimes." People who are suicidal often have an acute bs meter, when you are blowing smoke up their ass. Then again, I've never been trained in this kind of counseling. I'm just speculating. 

The thing that sucks for people who know the system, who find themselves feeling hopeless, is you are even more trapped when that hopelessness veers towards suicidal ideation. Because you can't say that, of course! Because then it's a whole mess. No one wants to take responsibility for that. Better safe than sorry ( *dials 911). Then the cops show up, social services. What a mess. So, just better not to say anything. But that's hard too! What a heavy burden, what a condundrum--damned if you do, damned if you don't! 

People are so lonely. I mean, I do see faith as an innoculant of sorts. If anything just to put a fence up, give a hard "no" when you have no other reason not to pull a trigger or tie a slipknot. Sorry, not an option. You gotta suffer. I'm glad I had that. So many people don't. But faith doesn't cure loneliness. It doesn't put a rose tint on life all the time. It helps you make sense of things just enough to give hope which keeps us alive. In it's truest form, it helps us grow, love, thrive, work miracles, raise the dead. But yeah, it can be a real grind, and you have to go on faith that it's worth going on when things get bad, I mean real bad, like no way out bad. 

But yeah, I wouldn't know what to say to someone on the bridge. They're there for a reason, and it may be a valid one...though they shouldn't be there, and there may be a more valid reason for climbing down. Maybe just listen, and don't feed them trite bs. I don't know. Maybe the devil is whispering in their ear to take the step. But maybe they've been stripped of the blinders, too, and are seeing their reality and the reality around them for what it really is--hopelessless burdensome, and very, very lonely.