Whoever announces a suicide never wants to die but to stop suffering “Diario La Capital de Mar del Plata

By lvaro Vega

CORDOBA, Spain.- When a call regarding suicide is received on the Telephone of Hope in Spain, the person who does it does not want to stop living, but to stop suffering, to find a way out of the suffering that , for some reason, suffer.

Josefina Santos and Jesús Lázaro are two of the volunteers of this helpline, where 4,935 calls on this subject were answered last year, 55% more than in 2019.

Santos is a doctor and head of this voluntary and social action organization in Cordoba and attributes this increase to “a containment cluster and all that we are going through” due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This has led to “an increase in emotional problems on a general level, both personal and relationship,” he adds.

Lázaro, who is a psychologist, clarifies that the fact that there has been such a large increase in such calls must not have influenced a possible increase in cases of death on their own.

Based on statistics from years ago, Lázaro claims that “the increase in suicidal ideation does not mean that it translates into suicidal behavior”, therefore “the person really does not want to die, this what she wants is to stop suffering and seek suicide the way out of this suffering ”.

This is how Santos understands it too, for whom “the person who has an idea of ​​something suicidal is not because he wants to stop living, but because he is in so much pain that he is wants is to end his life to stop suffering. “

The pandemic increases the risk

In the opinion of the psychologist, with the pandemic situation “people who had a history were exacerbated, due to isolation, lack of resources, due to their previous beliefs, so isolating themselves increased depression “.

The Telephone of Hope is preparing for International Suicide Prevention Day (September 10) with the idea that “the pandemic has dramatically increased the risk factors associated with suicidal behavior, so prevention is more than ever necessary”.

“We do an intervention in crisis, let’s say it’s a first shock, a first brake on the ideation” of suicide, says Jesús Lázaro.

“If they call us, we try to get the person to verbalize what is happening to them and, through active listening, we try to make them vent, express their emotions and then see where we put those reasons for. to live, if there are alternatives or to help them find them, ”he explains.

If not, “we can offer you an alternative,” he continues, “so that you can see that suicide is not the solution.”

Look for alternatives

During the time necessary, because the call to Hope Telephone has no time limit, the volunteers try to calm the other until he can “reason” and no longer resort to suicide as a solution to his problem. problem.

It is “a first barrier of containment”, although “it does not mean that we solve the problems, far from it, but we act so that this moment postpones it”, according to Lázaro.

According to Santos, what prompts a person with a suicidal ideation or who has made the decision to kill themselves to dial the Hope Phone number is companionship or relief from their suffering.

One of the advantages is that it is a completely anonymous call, “like a key to hope not to get where they want to go,” he concludes.

EFE.