As hard as it to see it is a solution

The beginning of understanding why people are suicidal is to understand how suicide offers a solution to them for some kind of problem. And when you can understand then you have a sense of what it will take to diffuse the situation.

It is important to realize the problem they are solving may not seem that big a problem to you or it may seem obvious that there are better ways to solve the problem than killing yourself, but the point is that is not their reality. And you must take their reality seriously.

Years ago I had a job in a school system in Georgia. I worked in a special school and one day I went out to check on a 14 year old boy who had not shown up for school that day. I knocked on the door of his trailer and as it slowly opened I looked inside and saw him sitting in his living room with a rifle up underneath his chin. He was getting ready to kill himself.

He had been suicidal before. I went in and talked him into giving up the gun. We started talking about what was going on. He told me that the night before he had got into an argument with his mother. Very hostile words were exchanged. He called her a "bitch" and she told him that he was a "mistake." Both of them went to bed furious. He woke up the next morning and went into her room to make up with her. She was gone.

He was furious. She would not accept his apology and he was beside himself. He picked up the gun and was going to kill himself to teach her a lesson. I stopped him a moment and asked him a couple of questions, "Where does your mother work (I already knew at a factory)? Does she ever get called in early(I knew she did)? Does she usually wake you up to tell you?" He answered slowly, "No she figures I am old enough to get myself up for school."

He stopped and looked at me. He knew where I was going. "Are you going to kill yourself because your mother had to go to work early? Don't you think you should check?"

It turned out she had went to work early. We talked about why he was mad and what he wanted to say to his mom and what he had to do to stay safe for the rest of the day. I notified all the people who needed to know what had happened. He ended up talking with his mother and it was okay.

The point though is he was getting ready to solve a problem that number 1 didnt exist and number 2 even if it had with a method that didnt solve anything. But when I talked to him and basically "dissolved" his solution his risk to hurt himself, while still real, decreased dramatically.

You are not a therapist and should never pretend to be one. However sometimes you may find yourself in a position where what you say to someone is important. Remember the message. Suicide doesnt really solve anything.