# Please Stop Saying, "Suicide is a permanent solution?"



## David Baxter PhD (Mar 5, 2010)

Please Stop Saying, ?Suicide is a permanent solution ??
By Franklin Cook, SPNAC Editor
March 5, 2010 

I have worked in suicide prevention and suicide grief support for a little more than a decade, and for the past year and a half (since the SPNAC blog was launched), I?ve scanned hundreds of articles on this tragic subject. In the course of my encounters with what is said and written in communities across the country and on the Internet, I have been subjected about a thousand times to the declaration ?suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,? and I cannot hear it one more time without crying out: Please stop saying that!

I know that it must seem like a clever and even a helpful thing to say (or else why would people have kept saying it, right up to the point where it has become nothing less than a cliche but with the power, I?m afraid, of an axiom). The declaration seems clever, I suppose, because it has the pleasant sing-song rhythm of an advertising jingle, like ?I am stuck on Band-Aid, ?cause a Band-Aid?s stuck on me.? And it seems helpful because, of course, it is true: Indeed, suicide is a permanent solution.

But here?s why I argue that we should stop saying it:

The statement violates the age-old principle that what we communicate ought to be designed specifically with a focus on the audience for whom the particular communication is intended. ?Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem? might strike someone who is not suicidal as a clever statement, and it might be a helpful thing to hear from the point of view of someone who already believes (or is likely to be convinced) that his or her problem is temporary. But the audience for this anti-suicide ditty is, of course, people who are suicidal.

As Edwin Shneidman points out in his _Ten Commonalities of Suicide_ , ?The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution.? So emphasizing to a suicidal person that suicide is a permananet solution is as likely to be unhelpful ? or even harmful or dangerous ? as it is to be helpful.

The problem a suicidal person is trying to solve, according to Shneidman, is how to escape from psychache, which Shneidman defines as ?intolerable emotion, unbearable pain, unacceptable anguish ? [that] cannot be abated by means that were previously successful? (emphasis added). In other words, from the point of view of someone who is earnestly considering killing himself or herself, the pain from which suicide would provide escape is not temporary. 

Even though the perception that the pain is permanent is not accurate, the strategy of trying to convince a suicidal person that his or her pain is temporary is as likely to be counter-productive as it is to be productive. 

For one thing, a suicidal person might be irrational regarding the subject of whether his or her pain is permanent or temporary. Irrational might not be the right word for it, but what lies at the core of many suicidal people?s dilemma is that the usual cognitive tools we rely on ? such as reason or logic ? are not available to them in their battle with their dark, self-destructive thoughts. So relying on a logical explanation of the nature of their pain to ?convince? them of something could be ill-advised both because it might be fruitless and it might be seen as argumentative (?Your pain is temporary.? ?No it?s not.? ?Yes it is.?)

In addition, saying, ?Look, your pain is only temporary,? might minimize or negate the importance or validity of the person?s feelings, sending the message that he or she is wrong about the nature or value of the pain. It also might be taken as judgmental or condescending (the speaker knows what pain is really like, but the suicidal person is mistaken about it). Finally, it might oversimplify the ultimate solutions to the underlying problems that are causing the person?s pain, for the jingle suggests, in part, that if a person would merely believe that his or her problem is temporary, then all would be well. 

Perhaps I think too much about this sort of thing, for in fact, I could write an entire post, as well, on the use of the phrase completed suicide. The field ?invented? the phrase, so the story goes, to replace successful suicide because successful is a positive term describing a negative event (we don?t want to characterize a suicide attempt as being ?successful? when someone dies and as ?failed? when someone lives). But if the word successful has positive connotations, isn?t it starkly obvious that the word completed has them, too, just as much or even more so? We don?t say ?completed heart attack? or ?completed automobile accident,? we say ?fatal,? and that?s what we ought to say with suicide, as in suicide fatality or either fatal or non-fatal sucide attempt.

It is true generally of all communication, but it is absolutely vital when it comes to messages about suicide  that we think before we speak.


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## Daniel (Mar 5, 2010)

> “The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution.” So emphasizing to a suicidal person that suicide is a permananet solution is as likely to be unhelpful — or even harmful or dangerous — as it is to be helpful.



Similar, I guess, is my pet peeve -- "suicide is selfish" -- since it implies that suicide is in one's self-interest.


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## Banned (Mar 5, 2010)

> Even though the perception that the pain is permanent is not accurate, the strategy of trying to convince a suicidal person that his or her pain is temporary is as likely to be counter-productive as it is to be productive.


 
This part jumps out at me.  When someone is suicidal, they can't see past the pain.  If they could, they wouldn't likely be having suicidal thoughts.  

This is a good article.  Thanks for posting it.


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## Cat Dancer (Mar 5, 2010)

That is true, Turtle. I think the saying means well, but falls short of really being helpful. It's a sad, sad subject to deal with. I wish suicide and the pain that causes it didn't exist at all.


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## Banned (Mar 5, 2010)

Cat Dancer said:


> That is true, Turtle. I think the saying means well, but falls short of really being helpful. It's a sad, sad subject to deal with. I wish suicide and the pain that causes it didn't exist at all.


 
I agree, CD.  I just wrote an article on survivors of suicide for my psych class.  One of my closing comments was about how it would be ideal (albeit completely unrealistic) if this option were no longer an option and a) as a society we could do a better job of helping people in pain and b) as people who sometimes consider suicide as an option we were more aware of other options that do lead to a happy, fulfilling life. 

Lately I've found myself being really grateful to the people who have kept me alive.  That's not to say I'm completely beyond it, but I'm actually starting to find joy in the things  I do, and meaning in my life.  It's possible, but in the pain of the moment, it can be difficult to see and embrace.  But it is there...


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## Cat Dancer (Mar 6, 2010)

I'm glad that you are seeing some joy in your life. Your sense of humor brings joy to me. 

I have been to that dark point many times in my own life and I do have many times of joy as well and am trying so hard to focus on those times. 

I wanted so badly to be a social worker and if I had not screwed my own life up so much I would have tried really hard to help others who struggle with those awful thoughts. I wish I could have done that.


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## Banned (Mar 6, 2010)

I don't think it's too late for you, CD.  If you want to chat further about this let's start a new thread, but I'll leave it up to you.


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