5 songs for suicide prevention: A therapist reacts
“Question!” by System of a Down
“Do we, do we know
When we fly?
When we, when we go
Do we die?”
There’s something about the romanticization of suicide. When we start to think about suicidal ideation as a way to cope, we understand the mind of someone who is suicidal a little bit better.
We all want a safe place. We all want peace. Often, when people are experiencing suicidal ideation, they don't really want to die: they want a safe place. They're fantasizing about relief. They're fantasizing about not struggling anymore.
That fantasy, letting your mind slip into a place of “what if I just didn't wake up,” isn't about not wanting to wake up as much as it's about not wanting to experience what you’re experiencing right now. The fantasy of suicidal ideation becomes a gateway to peace.
Please wait. Please make peace. When we understand that the desire is actually to be free from struggle, to have ease, to have relief, to have peace, then we start to get other options for how to reach that desire.
“Coming Undone” by Korn
“What looks so strong, so delicate
Wait, I'm starting to suffocate
And soon, I anticipate
I'm coming undone.”
I feel like this is a song about someone who is in a place of suicidality. They're contemplating taking their life, and they're having an internal battle with themselves: “That's right. Just come on. Do it quickly.”
Men have much higher rates of suicide. It's not necessarily because they experience suicidal thoughts more. It's largely because they use more lethal means, like a trigger between the eyes.
I think we know that men in general face more pressure to not speak about their feelings. There's so much pressure to look strong. Our cultural idea is that being strong means not talking about your emotions, not talking about your feelings, not sharing your pain, not processing your pain. Even in the song he's covering up the pain that he's speaking about with the backbeat of the song.
That is so many people's biggest fear: to appear not strong. That's often why they don't reach out for help. But coming undone so that people can see the delicateness inside of you is actually the bravest, strongest thing about you.
“Fade to Black” by Metallica
“Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can't be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now he's gone.”
This idea of “emptiness is filling me” is so powerful and so profound. Often when people get to a point of suicidal ideation, it's one of two things: it's either the pain that they are feeling is so big, so huge that they feel like they can't overcome it, or it’s the emptiness. Not feeling anything at all is a different kind of pain. That can also lead to suicidal ideation and a desire to die, because it is so jarring to a human who is meant to experience and feel so many things to just feel empty, to just feel numb, to just not feel anything.
Now, suicidal ideation is a choice point, and the end of suicidal ideation will set you free in one of two directions. False freedom, which is death, because you can't actually be free if you are not living anymore. Or true freedom, which is found through healing.
Stay with me. Suicidal ideation is on the right track thinking that something needs to change, that you cannot keep on living and feeling this way. What suicidal ideation is not good at is being a compass. The direction that this compass is pointing leads to a decision that is not the best decision.
The problem with suicidal ideation is the direction the feeling is pointing us towards is not that something in us needs to change, but that something in us needs to die. Actually, the pain in us needs to die, but this suicidal ideation points in the direction of the wrong death. The right death is our pain. The death of pain comes from an action that is oriented towards healing, not towards ending.
“Can You Feel My Heart” by Bring Me The Horizon
“Can you hear the silence?
Can you see the dark?
Can you fix the broken?
Can you feel my heart?”
“I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim” is one of the best lines of all time. That is what it feels like when every single thing that you try to get better doesn't work. It's like falling with no bottom. It's like a never-ending pit. It's not that you want to die, but there's a feeling that it is the only choice is to not feel it all because what you feel is so painful that it feels impossible to keep living this way. This is how people with suicidal thoughts feel.
What people with suicidal thoughts need is our understanding and our willingness to admit that sometimes we can't understand. This song gives everybody a gift, whether it's feeling understood by this song, or allowing you to understand those who feel this way. This song gives us a way to recognize the pain and the depth of despair that people who think about ending their lives go through. When you understand the depth of that despair, you recognize that them making that choice makes sense, because it feels like the only option.
But we know it's not. I know it's not the best choice, and that's why I'm asking you if you feel this way, to admit it. Because even though it's scary to get close, it's what you need right now. Get started on our anonymous forum.
“Last Resort” by Papa Roach
“'Cause I'm losin' my sight, losin' my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Losin' my sight, losin' my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine.”
This song is everything when it comes to describing the mindset of a suicidal person. “This is my last resort. I would not do this if I thought there were another option.”
People who are suicidal feel like suicide is their last resort. It's their last option. But they also will often do something else as a last resort: reach out one more time. They tell someone. They give signs, whether consciously or subconsciously, because there is this part inside of them that's asking, “would it be right or would it be wrong?”
People often reach out as a last resort.
I'm going to give you a personal story about why I decided to become a therapist. I lost my best friend to suicide. The night before he took his own life, he called the Crisis Text Line, and he had bipolar disorder. And so he was very much in a state of mania at that point, and he was very good at convincing everyone that he was fine.
They told him that he shouldn't be alone, but that he should be fine. That they weren't worried about him. That he didn't need to call emergency services.
The next day, he took his life. He was left alone. I think that inspired me to do this work.
It's a reminder that people who are suicidal have two parts that are fighting inside of them. One part that is saying, “This is my last resort. Nothing's going to get better. You’ve got to take your life. There's nothing good for you.”
And another part that is saying, “Maybe the last resort is reaching out.”
These parts are constantly battling with each other. Maybe we just try one more thing as a last resort to heal.
When someone reaches out in any way, we have to take it so seriously, because we have to recognize that there's an internal battle. We need to come alongside them and fight with that part of them that's saying, “maybe I can reach out and try one more time.”
If you’re ready to try one more time, our anonymous forum is one place you can go. If you are in crisis and need help right now, dial 988.
