I advise my students to ask their suicidal clients, “What stops you? What stops you from killing yourself?”
Some are horrified. They see this almost as a dare, as if they are saying to a hurting, suicidal person, If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have done it already. What stops you?
To the contrary, asking the question “What stops you?” merely involves saying aloud what many suicidal individuals ask themselves constantly. And if they don’t consider the question already, they should. Otherwise, they might not recognize hopes and fears that are reasons to keep fighting for their life.
Something has indeed stopped a living and breathing suicidal person from acting on their suicidal thoughts. If nothing deterred them, they would not still be alive.
So, if you are a therapist working with a client who has thoughts of suicide, it can be helpful to ask this simple question:
“What has stopped you from killing yourself?”
A related question to ask, as I discuss in this post, is:
“What are your reasons for staying alive?”
And if you are reading this post because you yourself have suicidal thoughts, please ask yourself these questions, too. The answers might fortify you, or even surprise you.
Reasons to Stay Alive vs. Reasons Not to Attempt Suicide
With my therapy clients and in my readings of research studies, I have observed two types of reasons people give for not killing themselves: life-affirming reasons, and fear-based reasons.
The life-affirming reasons center on the good things that can still happen for the person if they stay alive: the things to do, the people to love, the sights to see, the hopes to realize. These are the reasons the person has to stay alive.
Unfortunately, many people who struggle with suicidal thoughts are bereft of hope or pleasure, so there may be no life-affirming or hopeful reasons to keep going. In these cases, fear-based reasons tend to dominate.
The fear-based reasons for not attempting suicide center on the bad things that can happen:
Their suicide attempt might not be fatal, and they might suffer lifelong injuries. Many people have shot themselves, overdosed, tried to hang themselves, and cut themselves only to suffer blindness, paralysis, brain damage, or disfigurement.
They believe they might go to hell. I hear this often. Many of my clients fear what might await them after death.
They worry they will be reincarnated into a life of more pain. This is another fear that has stopped some of my clients from killing themselves. They fear that escaping their pain in this life will consign them to more pain, and more lessons to learn, in the next.
They do not want to hurt others. Some parents are deterred because they know that their suicide would make it more likely that their child would die by suicide. Others simply don’t want others to hurt.
They fear what would happen to their pets. As an animal lover, I get this. Many people don’t have family who could care for their pets, and the thought of the pets going to a shelter – or even worse, being killed – horrifies them. It would horrify me, too.
Generally speaking, I do not try to persuade the suicidal person with all the reasons not to end one’s life. To do so would invite a power struggle, one in which we are on opposite sides: the persuader, and the one resisting persuasion.
Instead, I elicit from the suicidal person what their reasons are for still being alive. I assess how strong these deterrents to suicide are, and I look for opportunities to reinforce them. But it’s best if the reasons come from the individual, not from me. The person’s answer is the only one that matters, because it is what has kept them alive thus far.
Beyond Fear of Suicide
Fear of what would come after a suicide attempt is a powerful deterrent. Ideally, though, people will have more than that. They also need hope. And they need a life worth living.
In my book Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals, I discuss many ways to help someone discover reasons for living, grow hope, find meaning, and improve their quality of life. (Sorry for the blatant plug, but there are too many tips to go into here.)
The more reasons a person has to stay alive, the more answers the person has when asked, “What stops you?”
What if Nothing is Stopping You from Suicide?
If you are thinking of suicide, you might have difficulty coming up with reasons for living. You might not even be able to think of something that is stopping you from killing yourself now. If so, I ask two things of you:
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- Get help. Talk to a therapist or a physician. Go to an ER. Let a family member or friend on your suicidal thoughts. Use a hotline, text line, or other resource listed here. It’s very possible – indeed, probable – that your thinking is distorted by stress, trauma, or illness. With treatment or time, you might indeed be able to identify many reasons for living.
- Examine what has stopped you till now. Even if you can’t identify reasons not to kill yourself, if you’re alive, something has stopped you until now. What? As I describe above, the answers may reveal hopes or fears that are themselves reasons to continue staying alive.
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Copyright 2017 Stacey Freedenthal. Written for SpeakingOfSuicide.. All Rights Reserved. Photos purchased from Fotolia.
Thank you for this article. My reason for not killing myself yet is because I’m already dead. I live and look like a dead person. Killing myself wouldn’t be possible 🥺.
If I knew with 100% certainty, right now, that there was a definitive afterlife, I would kill myself.
Sure, I have tons to live for, I’ve got a long and full life ahead of me, I have friends, family, mentors, who’s entire years would be ruined hearing I’d killed myself, I have enemies to outlive, and so much more, but it’s all superficial problems that I don’t have to deal with if I killed myself in this hypothetical where an afterlife has been officially proven to exist.
I know I’m uselessly reiterating my point here, but if it weren’t for the whole ‘no afterlife’ thing I would do it without question. Relative to others around me, my life fucking sucks. I’m fat, ugly, broke, too young to get a job, I got bullied in every school I’ve ever been to, my family’s annoying and my twin brother’s a whiny little bitch, and I live in a crumbling shithole of a country, that’s just a 3rd world country with London lazily stapled to it. I’ve got nothing worth living for that’s not just a fantasy, so yes, I would 100% do it with zero regard to the people around me if it weren’t for that.
I’m 54. My body hurts. I am a burden and have had depression most of my life. The urge to end it is very strong. Then I look at my wonderful Grandson’s and feel so guilty for wanting to end it. I also don’t want to be a burden so it tears me apart. I pray for everyone going through this pain.
Thank you for your presence, Stacey.
I live in suspension, as if immersed in aspic, inhaling to the bronchi and no deeper.
I live with a medical concern that qualifies for assisted death; am an elder with no close bonds, no purpose, direction, home, or emotional tone other than a fairly thick containment field that encircles a core of terrorized rage.
Too many losses and blows over the last 13 years and a ruined sense of Who-I-am-ness; all joy and animation have vacated; body’s breaking down. Abandoned by mate last year. For the first time in 24 years, bereft of a beloved cat (or three). Live, post-divorce, with some relatives who tolerate my presence and want me gone. Looking for a room somewhere, from which to vacate. Dread what is likely to come (friendless; alone; impoverished; ill; have no children; utterly numb)–>more of the same until death. Necessity demanded a move from a beautiful place (semi-rural, surrounded by green) to a hideous one (suburban concrete near a major roadway where cars scream all day, all night; more than 4 million humans crammed into an urban ulcer).
I admit to no thanks–This, too, is a new state, and a horrific one.
I used to hold buttercups in my hands and quietly weep for the beauty.
I used to have someone to touch.
So very goddamned tired. To the marrow.
I wake each day; with awareness of this life that goes on, the first word is “Fuck.”
I used to wake with a cat on my chest, purring right into my heart.
I feel nearly nothing, just Life’s tenuous hold on my life.
Life insists on living.
Jaw clenched.
All of my dearest ones have died.
We won’t reunite; of this I feel sure.
I attended my mother’s death, both as a daughter and a doula. Her essence spun like an orb, then was gone. Energy, dissipating.
C’est ça.
Beloved elders, my heart’s North Stars, are the vacancies I murmur to. I don’t pray. Sense of the sacred is dead.
I tended my mother’s conveyance from alive to beyond, and now I don’t care. My life has degraded to that deep a degree.
The most sacred passage (hers) and privilege (mine)–and I don’t care.
It’s not fresh, the loss: she’s been gone more than 20 years.
What stops me? At this point, exhaustion.
Forgive me.
Oh my, you describe your pain and hopelessness so powerfully that I feel it with you, from afar, as I read your words. I hope in time things do get better for you and you awaken again to a cat purring on your chest, or you feel awe for buttercups’ beauty, or whatever else can make life worth living, scan with jaw clenched. And yet you also said you have an ongoing medical condition, and I’m sorry for all the loss and pain, and I still do hope for better for you even if you don’t.
Also, I apologize about the long delay in posting your comment! For some reason the emailed notifications I typically receive when someone posts a comment have stopped, and I finally realized tonight that it’s not because no one’s been leaving comments!
Oh my, you describe your pain and hopelessness so powerfully that I feel it with you, from afar, as I read your words. I hope in time things do get better for you and you awaken again to a cat purring on your chest, or you feel awe for buttercups’ beauty, or whatever else can make life worth living, even with jaw clenched. And yet you also said you have an ongoing medical condition, and I’m sorry for all your loss and pain, and I still do hope for better for you even if you don’t.
Also, I apologize about the long delay in posting your comment! For some reason the emailed notifications I typically receive when someone posts a comment have stopped, and I finally realized tonight that it’s not because no one’s been leaving comments!
You should write and publish your writings. You have a talent. I’m not a big reader but your words kept me reading and for a moment I thought I was reading a poem. You have a depth of passion that is relatable and needed in this World.
My intent is not to offend I am saddened by your pain I relate to your pain and we are not alone we really have each other.
I experienced an ASA last night. Should I get help, or just try to process it?
And for those that don’t know what an ASA is it stands for Aborted Suicide Attempt.