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March 30, 2007
Drawing hope from the jaws of suicide
Here's an under-reported fact: only 10% of people who survive a suicide attempt go on to kill themselves.
Why is this important?
Because anything you can do to interrupt the suicidal process has a good chance of saving a life.
A reminder: suicide kills twice as many Americans every year as homocide.
Who has not been prompted to imagine themselves face-to-face with a killer? How many have been asked to imagine themselves face-to-face with a suicidal person?
Not only is the second scenario empirically more likely, it is a more protracted egagement (70% of suicides tell someone that they are suicidal), and less dangerous to the interventionist.
This also carries a metaphoric weight for me. There are moments of undeterminacy, where even accident can make the difference, and a brave person can be even better than an accident.
A man stands on the Golden Gate Bridge, preparing to jump. Tears stream down his face. A woman comes up to him, puts her hand on his shoulder.
"Will you take a picture of me and my daughter?" She asks.
He takes the picture, they walk on. He jumps.
But he is one of the lucky ones...he survives the fall.
He does not try to kill himself again.
[this is a true story, told by the man himself in the movie The Bridge]
What better ideal is there for a communist, and for the party: to be there at the moment of crisis, without a gameplan, but ready to intervene?
[more on suicide attempts @ http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/155/3/385 ]
Posted by Sam at March 30, 2007 03:08 AM
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