Are you looking after someone who is engaged in self harming or suicidal behaviour? How can you help them?
While everyone experiences periods of distress, for some these periods are more severe than for others. This can be due to mental illness or the occurrence of major traumatic events in the life of the individual. Sometimes, when distress becomes too extreme, those suffering may view harming themselves as the only immediate way to ease their distress. Self harm doesn’t necessarily mean that an individual will physically hurt themselves, but it can be through other means such as abusing substances, having an unhealthy diet etc. It is also important to understand why people engage in self harm for us to be able to help them.
As mentioned in the resilience section, self-harm is a common harmful coping skill that people use to deal with distress and there are various reasons why people use it. It can be that by inflicting pain on their body, sufferers hope to distract themselves from the tremendous internal suffering that they are undergoing. In severe mental illness, when sufferers may start feeling dead or numb inside, external pain may help them feel alive. Some sufferers also self harm to punish themselves due to the guilt they feel for past actions they may have committed. When distress becomes overwhelming, then suicide may be chosen as a way to escape from the despair, by putting an end to all experience.
Some signs of a sufferer engaged in self harm or suicidal behaviour include talking about death from time to time, mentioning plans to harm themselves or commit suicide, having marks on parts of their body as a result of self-harm or becoming socially withdrawn or isolating themselves.
If we feel that someone’s life may be at risk or irreversible harm is about to occur it is crucial that we do not wait but directly engage in the following measures:
- Build a rapport with the sufferer and show that you are there for them by practicing compassionate listening. If they mention any plans of self-harm or suicide, then try to investigate why they want to do it rather than reacting judgmentally.
- Assess the risk and the likelihood of harm and take steps to decrease it. For instance, if the sufferer mentions cutting, check and remove any blades or sharp objects within their reach, if possible.
- Build a social support net for them by informing the person closest to them who can observe the threat of self harm, and intervene if required.
- If the sufferer has any past psychiatric history, try to find out more about it, i.e. whether they are on any medications (which they may have missed), have any mental health professionals they visit or have any previous history of self-harm or suicide attempts. If they are seeking treatment, then you should encourage the sufferer to go to their professional or find a new one if they are dissatisfied with their present one.
- If the sufferer is very close to engaging in self harm or suicide, take them to the emergency department of a hospital with inpatient psychiatric facilities.
If the aforementioned steps are taken in a timely manner, they may help in saving a sufferer’s life.