Helping people to overcome the desire to suicide is definately about intervention of a positive nature, offering to them a different way of looking at their options. The physical circumstances of the 33 Chilean miners, trapped beneath the ground and unable to escape without outside help and intervention is perhaps a graphic illustration of the dynamic of depression.
Covered by a light rock fall, your natural instincts for self preservation will enable you to scrabble and scrape until you can reach the surface and escape, the compressing power of many tons of superstructure deny escape without external help. Whether you see your “cage” as a cradle of life, or entombment will depend entirely upon your hope of eventual escape and freedom.
People with prior trauma in their life, and who choose to use drugs will often view their environment as being a trap and inherently persecutory. Depression is called the “black dog” – people are “dogged” by depression – when depression intensifies it becomes more like a “black hole”.
Relationship with others is something that is essential if people are to recover from deep depression. People who want to help addicts with depression need to take care what they say to the addict so that they don’t contribute to the problem. When people are depressed they have low self esteem expressed as feeling hopeless, worthless and no good. Severely depressed people can extract the happiness out of any situation and make it sound bad. Tell them that the sun is shining, they will find a cloud in the sky and say it looks like rain.
Even when you have helped an addict to open the door of new possibilities, there is still more work to be done. People offered hope after thoughts of suicide are still vulnerable to relapse. This because seeing an opportunity is great but there could be a lot of discouraging work that they need to do in order to achieve it. When a depressed person gets their hopes up and is met with more rejection, this can intensify feelings of failure – and take away their hope.
Continued support might have to be given until an addict reaches their goals. A particular risk is if a person takes up using drugs again when they have wanted to stop. It is said that failure is determined not by how many times a man is knocked down, but how many times he gets up. Being there to help an addict get back on his feet no matter how many times he stumbles is part of what is needed to help an addict to choose better options than resort to suicide.
If you have helped an addict towards looking at the future as a positive thing, it is also a good idea to recommend professional counseling.
Just as personal intervention into suicidal thoughts can introduce a new and more positive dynamic, so professional counseling to give addict help offers even further options and methods to overcome feelings of powerlessness and despair.
Natural holistic type counseling which offers drug free detox and rehab is directed towards helping people resolve their emotional issues. Relapse is less frequent, particularly with holistic residential programs. Emotional healing gives an addict help and the strength to overcome his problems without considering suicide as a resolution. When a person feels positive and optimistic about life – suicide is never an option.
Author: National Addiction Resources
America's Best Treatment Directory
Leave a Reply