Suggestions From A Survivor: 3 Ways To Prevent Suicide

Claudette Esterine

My love of life now is not something that was always with me. As the only child for my mother and the second child for my father you would think that I had all the attention and affection a child could want.

That was not the case. In my late 30’s, I started learning how to stop casting blame at my parents' feet for what my life lacked. This was a lesson that would save my life as it, with the help of angelic friends, brought me through one of the darkest periods of my journey.

Sitting on the therapist’s floor with several different colours of wool threads encircling my body, I learned the lesson of boundaries. It was a few weeks, possibly a month after my second suicide attempt. Like so many, I had resisted seeing a therapist after the first attempt – the one that had the potential of being fatal as I had swallowed a cocktail of pills. Both were cries for help – to cope, to figure out how to move on.

People can be very insensitive to those of us who have lost our compasses, unclear how to step through the dark and foggy mist of depression and despair. I recall one “friend” asking me very sarcastically “Where was your God?” Well that was the end of our friendship as this so-called friend and spiritual person clearly had no true concept that “my God” had not left me.

It was I who had built monuments from humans. My mother was the first. My absent was father the second. A stream of lovers, friends who seemed to have lives better than I did were next. My “soul mate” was the biggest.

What attempting suicide taught me is that cowardly an act though it might seem, it is not an act for the fainthearted.

Please, do not read this wrong. This is not an endorsement of suicide. It is merely a statement of experience – of someone who has sat through the pain of loss, shock of abandonment and despair of an uncertain future with bottles of alcohol, knives, a balcony, pills and poison needing to choose which way to exit if at all.  As you sit with this decision, the grief of family and friends does cross your mind but it is the least of your worries.

I remember talking to “my God,” bargaining, pleading and beseeching to exchange the suffering that I was experiencing with a moment's relief. None came.  At least not as quickly as I needed and how I wanted. What I wanted was to wake up from the nightmare that I was obviously in to find that nothing had changed, despite the unhappiness my then partner and I both were experiencing.

So I swallowed the pills.

Sometime in the future, I will tell the rest of this story but for now as we observe World Suicide Prevention Day, my “wish” is that we would:

1. Pay more attention to our friends and acquaintances as they work their way through emotional challenges
2. Be less judgmental and more open to discussions about emotional issues and seeking or give the support required to regain one’s equilibrium
3. Lend a voice to the voiceless that are challenged by emotional issues – those of us who have “survived” this very personal battle.

Much of my early childhood into young adulthood issues were caused, let us say, by my parents’ lack of emotional stability. They both lacked parenting skills that would have allowed them to steer me away from abuse, neglect and emotional deprivation. My mother, as the sole caregiver, provided very little care and too much abuse. This history shaped me into a young woman lacking in confidence, self-esteem and vulnerable to the perverted advances of adults who should have known better.

As my spiritual guides always say, I sought love in all the wrong places as a result. Yet, it was my choice – all of them. That was the truth that was so hard for me to accept but when I finally did, on my therapist’s floor, I took full responsibility for my emotional health and started allowing others to do the same with theirs – including my mother.

Research shows that a person who has attempted suicide once will try again – most often successfully. Thankfully, I had the support and intervention that got me off that ledge.  Would you do the same for someone else?

Please check your local telephone directory for Suicide Prevention services in your neighbourhood and volunteer your services as you are gifted. If you are experiencing feelings of uncertainty, despair and intense grief, please seek help from the Suicide Prevention Hotline in your neighbourhood. If you are not aware of that number, then dial 911 for help.

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Have a great rest of the day!