Life not worthwhile?

How humans veer back and forth to get betterOssilate

There may well be several readers of this website for whom this is an important page.

That said, rather like the page on sleep, it can be irritating. There is nothing worse than being told what’s good for you when you are knackered and/or really don’t give a damn.

I’m sticking with this page all the same as I repeat my assurance, given a few times, that you do not have to do anything because I appear to say so.

Read as much or as little as you wish. Please do not act on all and every item; only the ones that raise your curiosity.

I have not mentioned suicide and self-harm up to now and the website has been in existence for many years. My apologies for this omission. It is a difficult topic and I may not have referred directly to the subject because of my own anxiety, not to mention my own history. I took the view that this is one topic where small, safe experiments did not fit. Now I believe I was wrong. I am going to have a go.

I was helped, here, by attending an on-line event relating to the subject in September 2021.  I was fortunate to hear some very insightful speakers. I gained some confidence to speak out from their approach to this topic. 

More importantly, I was made to realise that this page is not likely to do harm. I, like so many others, may have been ruled by the myth – or so it would seem to be a myth – that talking about suicide and self-harm can make it more likely to be acted on.  Speaker after speaker challenged this conclusion.

So, let’s see what more can be said as the presentations raised some interesting possibilities for devising safe experiments.   Let me consider what small steps can be devised when some-one is so hard-pressed that life does not feel worthwhile?

When we suffer loss or notice feeling depressed

I would like to start by returning to the work of Margaret Stroebe and others. Indeed, a small number of safe experiments can be found on the page where I discuss their different view of the bereavement and loss processes. The illustration that might help most of all – and produced elsewhere – is as follows:

M Stroebe and H Schut The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description  in Death Studies Apr-May 1999;23(3):197-224.

….. where  the concept of oscillation is central. According to Stroebe and Schut, healthy grieving means engaging in a process of oscillating – jumping back and forth – between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping.

In short, when I grieve I can expect to move rapidly between confronting my loss, and feeling it. At other times, I might avoid or adjust to my loss.

Rory O’Connor’s book

To absorb this material further, I would recommend the reader to read Rory O’Connor’s book When it is Darkest (2021), published by Penguin Random House. Rory is Professor of Health Psychology at Glasgow University and he has devoted his life to the study of suicide and prevention of suicide. 

The vacillating nature of our impulses that O’Connor describes seems rather similar to the process described by Stroebe and Schut, as summarised in the illustration above. Note the connection between this ‘oscillation’ and my list of ‘dysfunctional thinking’ that follows.

It would appear that our thinking can oscillate when we feel under pressure; perhaps just one demonstration of the conflict between the  Social Engagement System (Ventral Vagus) and our primitive response to threat (Dorsal Vagus). 

To be more specific, O’Connor refers to being valued and valuable, inferring that valuing ourselves can be an antidote to suicidal images and thinking. He offers up the powerful, yet simple gesture – the smile.  Here is the simplest of safe experiments for we can all smile at others, at at ourselves (best done in a mirror!). How come is this so potentially powerful? O’Connor points out that “social connection is one of the building blocks to saving lives“.

Later on, I will add some of my own antidotes.

O’Connor uses his book to identify fourteen myths about suicide. One of them is “those who talk about suicide are not at risk of suicide” This is important as so many small, safe  experiments involve conversation and talk. He tells the story of Ryan and the woman in the park. You could be that woman, or you could be Ryan and keep looking around when it is not easy to do so. You may notice how a smile can promote conversation and change, but O’Connor is inviting us to accept that this action may not be sufficient to help others see the choices in front of them.

This raises the question: should we be on the look-out for other options and alternatives?  This has led me to offer you a challenge;  a specific, important experiment that:

Considers your own safety when surrounded by dark thoughts and bad feelings

AN EXPERIMENT

There are a few things I would like you to do before acting on any dark thoughts. If you are feeling life is not worthwhile, I’d ask you to read through this page and consider any suggestions that intrigue you. Consider the options available to you. It’s not enough to say: I do not want to feel suicidal thoughts. There are a lot of things we do not want in our life and/or hear in our heads. This experiment offers you a little bit more than ‘trying’ to stop something.

As with any safe experiment, the task is to find what is do-able and, indeed, small enough to become do-able. Please proceed to create do-able options one step at a time and just notice when you feel safer.

Some pointers that may recommend this experiment to you may include:

  • Feeling suicidal and experiencing extreme pain;
  • Not having the resources to cope.

We can change any feeling and sensation. That’s what affect regulation is about. We can increase our coping resources – often with everyday actions. Any experiment using Subject Units of Discomfort (SUDS) demonstrate the ups and downs of our experiences over time. Feelings and sensations come and go; they pass.

Get some paper and a pen

START A SAFE EXPERIMENT by using pen and paper. This can be better than keeping thoughts in your head. Some people write to themselves when they are in a good place.  That way, they have something concrete to get hold enough when in not such a good place.

This may be a step too far, but is there some-one you can trust, with whom you can leave a copy of your notes to yourself?

Some questions I’d ask you to consider as you develop your options. These questions are intended to reduce the risk of acting on the suicidal thoughts:

  1. What are warning signs or triggers that indicate I am feeling more out of control?
  2. What have I done in the past that helped when I was in a similar situation?
  3. What ways of coping do I have available to me, now?
  4. What can l do to help calm myself, now?
  5. Are there ways of thinking that make self-soothing difficult?
  6. What alternatives are there to these known patterns of negative thinking such as:

Selective attention: only consider this thing, not that thing, e.g. “there, I told you, its always like this”. Antidote: to stand back and notice how you can attend to the wider picture. This may give you an exception to the rule. One exception may be enough and sufficient.

Black-and-White thinking: this can only be this, not that, .e.g “when I am like this, I can only think of harming myself“. Antidote: Finding yet more exceptions. Can you change Black-and-White into colour or, at least, sepia in the first place?

Catastrophising: using only superlatives such as ‘only’, always, never and forever. Antidote: editing superlatives out of your everyday language.  Often they are simply exaggerations adding little to the point you may want to make. Consider, instead ‘provisional’ language such as: ‘possibly’, ‘occasionally’, ‘from time to time’, ‘it may be [this] or may be [that]’. OK, this language is not so sexy or dramatic, but it can be more fitting to the occasion!

Magnification: like the heavy drinker looking at a bottle of beer and seeing it grow ever bigger in front of them. Antidote: defocus your eyes and re-focus several time.  Glance around the room and describe where you are and what you can actually see, now. Notice how easy it is to drift back into past memories or anticipate the future. When you ‘just notice’ this natural tendency, bring yourself back to now, repeating what you can see as you look around. Look out of a window to widen your vision and o the same thing.  Can you see images change? Can you do something similar with your ‘ears’?

Minimisation: “Oh, I’ve tried that and it’s never worked“. Antidote: keep in mind that any action will lead to either a small defeat or a small victory or to a mixed result.  If something does not work, then do look for something just a little bit different, just to try it out for size.

Over-generalisation: again,” it’s always like this. Every time I try it, it ends up like this.” Antidote: allow your natural curiosity to look for something else. Be specific with yourself. Curiosity may help you step beyond repetitive behaviour and to find the exception to the rule. It’s out there, somewhere.

Using ‘try’:  as a cover for doing nothing. ‘Try’ can mean something is not worth it, but I feel obliged to make a nod towards it. Antidote: as above, edit your language. It’s not easy as words slip out so quickly. Therefore, knowingly slow down your rate of thinking and speaking. This may give you a chance to edit more effectively, over time. Controlled breathing and slower, a little deeper breathes can help, sometimes.

Negative automatic thinking, or NATS: all the examples described here could be a NAT. The only requirement is that the thought arises without  encouragement, and on a repetitive basis.  Antidote:  coming off auto-pilot and thinking about something very consciously – even if it feels strange and embarrassing.  Such conscious thoughts include affirmations as alternatives to ‘darker thoughts’.

Personalisation: this is the only way I can sort this out. Antidote: ask other people: what might they do.

… and the rude one:

Mustabation such as:  “I should always put other people first”, “I must get this right; perfectly right”; “I should know better”, “I must be strong and keep in control”, “I must succeed” or “I must agree with others” etc

The antidote here is to edit out those ‘value’ words such as ‘should’, ‘ought’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’  and, in  particular, ‘why‘ in favour of speculations such as “what would happen if ….,” “is it possible  ……” “how might I …...”? These speculations are best done in the ordinary, everyday situations, rather than in the crisis of the moment.  This experiment works better when you’ve practised it a lot, and are more confident about how you can use this antidote. This is true for most of the antidotes listed here, so use these experiments this afternoon, this evening and tomorrow morning.

So what do you actually do?

For the rest, there’s not much point in summarising some of the things I do. You tell me: what safe experiment can you identify or devise that may alter some distortions in your thinking just a little bit?

I have had a response saying there’s an app called stay alive. It can hold some of the things you talk about on a page. As most people carry their phones all the time it’s always with you https://www.stayalive.app/

Also, there is an app called Replika that can mimic conversations. This offers a way to talk to someone without actually having to open up to another human. It will save conversations almost like a journal if you purchase the programme. My informant highlighted that it did not work for her, but it did for a friend. This highlights just how individualised a safe experiment has to be. You can find out more at: https://replika.ai/

All that said, I have pointed to other experiments in this website, using the blue hyperlinks. One such is the 3P’s with a comment on how to build protection for self and others.

A summary of actions open to you now

I will now summarise – and encourage you to consider some actions that might be available, now, such as:

  • asking a close friend what they would do when they felt as I do, now?
  • if necessary, imagine what they might say to you.
  • consider: are there things I can ask my friends or family to do for me?
  • what could others do that would help me, now?

What about taking a different kind of action?  ASKING for information, advice or guidance from:

A Friend or relative

A Health professional

A Telephone helpline

The internet:  two Internet-based small, safe experiments have come to me from some-one with a ‘eye’ to the digital age.

  • there is an app called stay alive. This app is always with you as most people carry their phones around with them: see https://www.stayalive.app
  • there is another app called Replika. I am told it that can mimic a conversations so it offers a way to talk to someone without actually having to open up to another human. If you buy it, it will save your conversations, almost like a journal: see https://replika.ai/
  • making a note of your thoughts,  here and now, can throw light on things. I’d add that a record of conversations in ‘better’ times can help. In my experience, it can help to visit ‘good time’ conversations, in bad times.

A final experiment to consider: what is a safe place for me?

I can take myself away from here, to somewhere else or I can go to somewhere else in my head (using visualisation):

When I get there: consider how do I assess the present risk to me and reduce it?

Make a resolution to remove unwanted medications – take them to pharmacy.

Throw away blades.

Re-read your own notes on the warning signs or triggers that make me feel more out of control. Consider: what something can I do that is just a little bit different?

Are there better places to be – other than staying home, alone, in bedroom, brooding. For example, arranging to be with other people.

Take some time to seek a song on the internet by Harry Chapin called A Better Place to Be.

Look back and remember what I have done in the past that helped?

What other ways of coping do I have? For instance, phoning a family member or friend or a professional.

Re-reading and re-writing my thoughts and feelings to remind myself of alternative ways of looking at things. Thoughts and feelings do not harm; indeed, identifying feelings can be liberating for some people.

Practical relaxation to calm and soothe myself: for instance, focus on my breathing and slow it Just noticing the experience and naming it. Here, do something else a little bit different may offer some relief.

If you’ve got through this before, remind yourself what you did and be aware that “I can get through it now”. “This will pass”. [Please keep in mind that our neuro-chemistry means that nothing stays the same, for always, even when we die]

How about: “I will feel better tomorrow and be grateful that I did not die”.

These are just some of the useful tools you and I can use when just noticing our depressed feelings (some are listed on the hyperlinked page; the whole page may be worth a read).

Create as many tools to design your own experiment by ….

BEING CURIOUS ….. AND STAYING CURIOUS

Will this curiosity enable you and I to STOP-LOOK-LISTEN  when it is just possible?

Is there any safe experiment that will help us build up our options so we do not discount ourselves out of the equation and, thereby, out of living.

Through all this, life may still appear to falter. Are there ways to look faltering in the eye?

Self-harming actions

One such ‘falter’ arose in 2022 when high profile issues arose relating to the impact of the internet on minors. It appeared that young people were being encouraged to harm themselves and even commit suicide.

I’d remove this page from the website if I thought it would reduce this problem. In fact, I want this page to to be antidote against lethal ‘nudgers’. That said, I know I am visited by a small number of people, and an even smaller number of minors (if any at all), but I’d value it even if just one reader found something just that little bit different.

Also, this website is criticises those who encourage others to act, as they advise. If you hear such words from others, even from me, then please label them as bullies (or seducers) and confront that behaviour as best you can.

Any reader on this website may have noticed that I say: any rush to action can be a large step. That step may be in a direction you might regret if you’d stayed long enough to make that judgement.

With any design of any small experiment please keep in mind the key word: safe. Safe means leaving a space in your design that maximises the prospect of taking another step this afternoon, or tomorrow. Also, your design may minimise any prospect of regret.

In conclusion, I’ll say that that minors are not responsible for their actions; legally that is never the case. Often effective change to hold them safe depends on community and family responses; the small, everyday actions surrounding a minor can make some difference to some of those young people, but not all.

I can help little here except in my own family and community – despite some training in ‘family therapy’. I would ask that individuals and small groups assess their own level of responsibility. This page may just help one person, in one place and at one time.

In addition, if it is of help, the safe experiments on Special Time and open, compassion communication might be worth viewing. In practice, it is not so easy to implement those safe experiments.

For that reason, professionals such as counsellors, doctors and teachers can be of some limited assistance if only you’d approach them.

Some further pages to follow

What is a nudge?

Designing a nudge

Limits to nudging 1

Limits to nudging 2

Taking the scenic route

It’s only the end of the beginning

Learning to be a little bit different does not happen in a straight line