Have you ever wondered why people don't ask for help when they are struggling with nenegative or suicidal thoughts? I do, most of the time. The single answer still eludes me despite researching the topic for decades now. It is that there is no single answer that makes suicide prevention so challenging yet one that we cannot shy away from.
Is it the hardwiring of our brain that stops us from asking for help? For many of us, our default setting is to decline assistance and to go it alone. If I were to ask you when I first greet you "How are you doing?", I bet your first reaction is to say "Good". If I were to ask you if I can give you a hand with something you were working on would your first thought be 'No thanks, I've got this'.
Is it because we are community-oriented creatures, wired to help others? I want you right now to think of one thing that you are grateful for in your personal life, one thing that you are grateful for in your work life and one thing that you are grateful for about yourself. Chances are, the majority of you would answer it is family and/friends for your personal life, your colleagues or those we help for your work life, and you may have to stop and think for a moment ot two about what you are grateful for about yourself. Why didn't we think that 'we are here for those around us' when thinking about ourselves?
Is it because we fear what others might say or do? Fear is what keeps us alive; fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of being hurt, fear of what others might think, fear of.... Fear keeps us in our comfort zone so that we remain safe. Fear is also the reason why we tend to run in patterns of behaviour because it is the known, the unknown makes most of us uncomfortable at best.
Is it because we have made a terrible mistake? Perhaps we made an error of judgement, no matter how small it might seem to others yet to us it is a major error. We think about that error over and over until it becomes completely our fault. All the time, our inner critic beats us up about the error making us feel like we have truly failed.
Is it because we don't want to hurt those around us? As we go through the intense pain, emotional and physical, we are hurting deeply. And, as we look to those around us who ask us what's going on, we don't want to pass that same hurt on to them so we keep it to our self. We love you and don't want you to feel what we are feeling because it is intensely painful.
Is it because of our natural negativity bias? If we haven't learned how to adapt to adversity and to our ever-changing environment then we tend to look more for the danger around us than we do to the positive things.
Is it because we are more empathic than others? Empaths see the pain in others and want to help that person to manage the pain yet by doing so they take on the other person's pain. They care for others so much so that they forget about caring for themself.
Is it because we tend to worry more than others do? Worry is not a wasted energy, it is not needless, it provides us with solutions just as a risk management plan might also do. However, if we worry about the wrong things or allow worry to become our 'go to' default then we only see risk without a solution and miss seeing the positives.
Is it because our brain isn't functioning as it should? Irrational thoughts become rational to us, small issues become insurmountable, what we once held on to for hope we now find none, where we were once able to help ourselves we find we can no longer do so.
How will we truly know why a person doesn't ask for help when they are struggling with suicidal thoughts is to ask them when they are in that dark place, maybe then they will tell us their reason as to why. And, chances are, they will give you an answer that makes no sense. But it does to them.
Asking a rational person how they might behave if faced with an irrational situation has no value because they either have not, or are not, in that exact same place. It is a very different world when we are in 'that place'. Rather than finding out why people don't reach out for help when they are struggling with negative or suicidal thoughts, it might be better to find out how we can identify when people are struggling and how to manage them safely, for you both.
How can you tell if someone is struggling with negative or suicidal thoughts? They isolate themselves, they can't sit still in the early stages as their mind races to find a solution, there is a very noticeable change in their usual behaviour, and they won't look directly at you when you talk with them. That's the first signs.
What do you say to someone who looks to be struggling with negatrive or suicidal thoughts? "You haven't been your usual self, I deeply care about you, what's going on?"
Let's talk!