Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Diane Nelson

 

September is National Suicide Awareness Month. Each year at this time, Steps to Hope focuses on the interconnectedness of domestic violence, sexual assault and suicide. It could be the abuser who takes the life of the intimate partner (who wants “out”) and then commits suicide. It could be the survivor who just can’t shake a traumatic event of their youth or of their adult life. It is a silent killer indeed. It’s a private journey. Until it’s not. 

As we help survivors navigate life, we are acutely aware of those clients who seem more “fragile.” We meet people who become hooked on some type of “substance” to dull the pain of facing certain memories. The misuse is self-destructive to the point of death. While many go through “bad” times, it is usually short-lived. Some can put the experiences aside for a time. 

But some ghosts keep coming back. And once “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness”  advance to the point that it affects everyday life, it becomes serious!  

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center has conducted research that reveals as many as 1 in 3 survivors of intimate partner violence or domestic violence have considered suicide. They are already at higher risk for depression, PTSD and anxiety. It’s hard to escape when worthlessness and powerlessness live in your head, feelings that can paralyze and obstruct any attempts to a normal, productive life. 

Sometimes counseling is scary since those experiences may have to be re-lived in order to “put them back into a box with a bow on them.” But those experiences have to be resolved.  Who could possibly understand this lived experience? Will they be judged because they just can’t get their life together? Loneliness sets in.  Despair follows.  

And then a suicide attempt. A drastic cry for help! Anything to stop the pain.

For those of us who have never experienced this, we just cannot grasp this reality. We can’t even help because we don’t understand how it got to this. So, how do we help these survivors? More importantly, how do we break the cycle?

In my next column, we will look at the warning signs and how to help.