Our team interviews one of our in-house counsellors to share their experience with a a victim of suicide ideation.
Can you introduce yourself, please?
My name is Aanuoluwa and I’m an in-house counsellor for MANI.
What is that one suicidal case that really struck you?
This particular day, an admin of my group reached out to me and asked me if I could take an emergency case. I asked what the nature is and she mentioned ‘Suicidal ideation’. I gave a prompt ‘Yes’ and she sent the details to me. I messaged her to let her know I was going to call her and I did so after securing her permission. We talked for more than an hour and I was glad I placed that call because she was on the brink of taking her life.
Why Does that Case Stand out to You?
She is a mother of three who was suffering from hallucination, lack of companionship (as her husband was hardly around) and having to cope with relocating to a new state and leaving behind a thriving business and familiar faces.
How Did it Make you Feel?
My heart went out to her because it truly was a heavy load to bear. Her children were her anchor that was keeping her from going from suicidal ideation to suicidal attempt and she was seriously losing a grip on that one anchor as at the time contact was established.
How Were You Able to Help the Client?
The first step to helping her was to listen actively. During our first session, she spent over a hour talking about her challenges and all I did was to listen actively, reaffirm what she said and give encouraging phrases to convey empathy. After the first session, she felt a little better because she finally got someone to not just listen to her but believe her (her husband didn’t believe she was seeing things that did not exist in her immediate environment at that particular time and he didn’t believe she was having difficulty settling into the new state).
By the second session, she opened up more as she had felt relaxed and trusting. She mentioned the use of alcohol and hard drugs (cannabis) to blurt out her reality and still mentioned the need to leave life and not have to go through the pain anymore.
I encouraged her to do away with alcohol and the substances she was beginning to abuse. She was actually planning to use an excessive dose to commit suicide. After much persuasion, she agreed and we continued to discuss more.
By the third and fourth sessions, we had come up with ways for her to entertain herself, keep herself busy and be proud to be alive at the same time. She stated getting fulfilment from what she loved to do and was hopeful that it will truly help her cope with her situation.
By the fifth session, she stated that she was learning how to make candles and cream, planning on starting to sew again once her machine got delivered and agreeing to mix more with people in church seeing as that was the only social gathering she had access to at the time.
She had found a reason to live again, she had discovered that there were people (MANI) who genuinely cared for her mental health and was rooting for her. She had ditched the idea of committing suicide by the fifth session.
What would you like the world to know about suicide, suicidal thoughts and ideations?
I would like people to understand that if we’re to lessen the prevalence of suicide attempts and suicide cases in our society, then we all have an active role to play. Genuinely caring for the welfare and health of a person goes a long way in chasing away the shadow of suicide. Let’s avoid stigmatising, labelling, body-shaming, cyber bullying and other factors that contribute to suicidal ideation and thoughts.
In turn, let’s be more empathetic, more sensitive, more generous with positive words and more willing to lend a helping hand. Only then would we have a society that is suicide-free.
If you are experiencing feelings of hopelessness, despair, or you are having feeling of suicide ideation, click here.