Ok, so in the aftermath of the #RobinWilliams apparent #suicide, Lisa had some personal thoughts. Because of the nature of the topic and how tragically often it applies to our work with the Traveling Music School on the Navajo & Apache reservations, we thought it relevant to share here with all of you. There are men, women, and youth struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts in all of our lives, whether we are aware of it or not. Intervening in those lives is hard, dirty work, but it is absolutely vital, and you may be the only person who can do it for a given individual. Hope in Transit is not affiliated with those who offer the two-day class Lisa is recommending below, and there is no commercial benefit to us from recommending this to you. Our intention is not to exploit this tragedy, but to help prevent others like it. If you find other excellent trainings, please, go do them. We are simply mentioning this one because we have direct experience with it. People that we have encouraged and enabled to attend, including one of our former students, have actively and effectively used this suicide prevention training. Please take a moment to read, share, and respond to Lisas post below. --- I appreciate the grief that people are experiencing over the high publicity apparent #suicide of #RobinWilliams and I understand the need to feel safe afterwards. However, I can 100% guarantee you that you have more than one person on your friendslist who is currently suicidal. If you want to honor Robins memory, or to make your world a safer, better place, the answer is not to post platitudes or inspirational quotes and then call your job done. Your work is much harder. You must seek out those people, and contrive to understand what has made their world cave in around them. Many of the reasons people give for suicide are preventable conditions. I felt utterly alone. There was no one I could turn to. There were no better options for me. The world would be a better place without me. I was out of money and could not survive. I was beaten by this disease. I could not take the pain anymore. These words come after a long, often quiet, struggle. Intervention could have taken place many different times along that desperate path. Offers of friendship. Periodic check-ins. A listening, non-judgmental ear. Practical assistance. Financial resources. Plug-ins to social services. Time. You often give many reasons why you did not intervene. I just didnt realize. I had no idea; she seemed so upbeat in social situations. I knew he was down, but I thought hed get over it. I could tell there was a problem, but I just didnt know what to do. These objections are two-fold. First, we didnt know. Why didnt we know? Struggling people are often excellent at covering their tracks, because they didnt want us to worry. Often that worry becomes a burden to the suffering instead of a source of aid. We have to put aside our feelings and emotional response to the situation to engage with genuine compassion. It will require a deeper relationship with the people in your lives than the superficial acquaintanceship that is the currency of our times. You will have to intentionally do this. You will have to dig deeper, prove trustworthy, be consistent, seek people out. People are lonely, and hurting, and desperate for all variety of reasons, and you will need to be able to see past the surface to get to all these things. It requires effort. Secondly, we didnt know what to do about it. Sure. This is a tough one. When someone is suicidal, there are no easy answers, or the suicidal person *would have already found them*. You cannot bring any new bright insight to a struggling person that will suddenly cause them to go, oh, okay then and get on with things without bringing you down anymore. But what you can bring is a consistent, patient presence into their lives, and you can, through your diligent unconditional relationship, continue to help them build their reasons for continuing to live. You do not have to do this alone. You are front lines, man on the street first aid. First responders. There are professionals who can help your struggler navigate their slow way to emotional health. But they have to get there. And they will always need someone in their lives, day in and day out, on whom they can rely. And there is training available for you to make you better able to do this. In particular, I recommend https://livingworks.net/programs/asist/ ASIST is a two-day intensive suicide prevention training. I have been through it myself, and I have put friends, colleagues, and students through it. It is incredibly difficult. But it is also vitally important, and may provide you with a tool that could literally mean the difference between someones life or death. If you have been moved by a celebritys death, if you have read countless accounts of how people feel about that death, if you have opened your eyes to the world of people around you, then you have the opportunity to respond. Before the next thing scrolls past on your social media dashboard, click on that link. Find a training near you (theyre often free) and enroll. If there isnt one currently scheduled, email the address at that link and ask. Our response to this tragedy is sadness. But this is a preventable tragedy if our response can be one of action instead. Will you be the one to help?
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 00:32:52 +0000