Re: “The Big Lie we all believed.”
As a practicing psychologist, I wanted to applaud your deeply powerful editorial, and hopefully add something to the topic. I’ve been asked many times how to stop suicide. I’ll try to explain it the best I can.
Suicide is a choice people make because of intense and unremitting mental and spiritual pain. Typically, the pain [is] accumulated over years through a series of betrayals. These betrayals come from society, family, or other attachments. It always happens in a historical context (as your editorial spotlighted very well) or backdrop, of suffering and traumas (poverty, death, broken attachments, loss, and heartache). Hope in human and natural goodness and justice is lost. So, the person feels lost and disconnected from society, spirit, and nature. Usually, in an effort to fight off the torment, alcohol or drugs are used to find moments of relief.
You, if you chose to heal this (as we all should), must become the embodiment of hope and redemption. This is hard work to convince a person that goodness exists and there is light and hope. You have to use love, compassion, spirit, and empathy.
You will be attacked on many levels and will need help in the fight. But, it’s a very winnable fight. Well worth it and we can end this together.
Shane Eynon, Ph.D. (Seneca, Ojibwe)
Licensed Psychologist