This month is suicide prevention month and yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day…
I will be honest…
I thought about not being here myself when I experienced an existential crisis so profound after the death of my mother. It wasn’t the loss of her, although of course that had an impact, but the realisation, as she passed, that life is quite a long round of loss, and suffering; of isolation and seismic change. And that without love – either for myself or from those around me, we are rendered pretty helpless and often utterly bereft!
Through roles in education, I have heard and seen evidence of major trauma in early lives…emotional abuse, violence, abandonment, neglect. I have experienced some myself. But it’s not just the extreme and visible abuse that can leave wounds which remain sore and open to the deepest infection. It’s what to others is invisible or which appears as a harmless scratch or which they dismiss as superficial.
It’s when others don’t really listen to understand but listen to defend or worse, attack. When there is no-one to support; no-one to listen; no-one to affirm; no-one to validate. Or, the ones who are around, using their position to exploit, control, undermine, or gaslight…then what?
It is converse that the strongest protective factors are our relationships….but they are also the source of the greatest harm. If we do not have truly benevolent, caring people in our immediate network, then what?
If we reach out, and there is no-one to respond with kindness, then what?
In all relationships, maintain integrity, connection and kindness.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 116 123.
The Samaritans won’t judge or tell you what to do
Latansani 