[An email I really received]
Re: Sad News about your client
Dear Counselor,
It is with much regret and great sadness that I tell you that my family member has passed away. He chose to take his life on his birthday. I know that you can neither confirm nor deny….but I thought that you should know. He had grown increasingly delusional, paranoid and depressed in the final months until he was someone I barely knew. He did and said things that he would never have done years before.
Regards,
There are wonderful aspects of being a counselor, including how we get to see people through the life span. The last time I saw this client was last year, about a year ago and he cancelled one month and no showed the last scheduled appointment the following month. He had previously asked me if he should die, would I go to his funeral and had even given his signed permission for me to do so. Of course, I asked that it be a natural death to which he could never really guarantee. He was medically ill as well so it was possible.
He was a client for five years and I estimate I saw him over 50 times in numerous locations. He always came to session with a newspaper and he paid me in cash, but put it in an envelope because he felt uncomfortable just handing me cash. I met his family. He applied for social security/disability on my insistence and was awarded it after an arduous year during which he did not like proving his illness(es) and need. The money was modest and the insurance(Medicare) was more of a pain he had said. He is one of the 2 clients who came to an appointment the morning his parent died. Its hard to describe the weight of that. The gesture that is..in the midst of loss, they kept their appointments. Such raw emotion in the moment. He often challenged me and texted me in the middle of the night, so I had to put boundaries firmly in place. His sessions left me tired and I felt like I worked harder than he did sometimes. We worked through many moments in his life: births, deaths, loss and gains. I learned a lot from having him as my client.
There have been other clients who have died after treatment ended, but I do not know the circumstances, nor was I sent an email. I was not informed they were suicides in any other case.
When a celebrity chooses to end his or her own life, I cringe. The media is great at glamorizing death and the torture of living for these artists and free-thinkers. Cute or ironic quotes are generated on beautiful, or heart-wrenching pictures and the world is sad for a moment. There is a surge of interest in the celebrities’ work and everyone professes themselves fans. The guilt is so thick it can be cut with a knife. If only we had known…My reaction is not because of the respect given to the deceased person, but to the attention given to the death and not the manner in which they died. People are subtly led to believe that death is a choice that the person made and they are better for it. People are exposed to one death and mourn socially, culturally, but ignore the fact that regular every day people end their own lives every 15 minutes in America. Depression is real. It is serious and it affects people in ways those who do not have it cannot imagine. Robin William’s death is sad, tragic, and a demonstration that money and fame are not a defense to this terrible condition. Treatment exists, but people have to be willing to seek it. As a teenager, I was called into a situation where someone who appeared to have it all, wanted to end it all. It is a sight I will never forget and it completely changed my view in life and gave me a desire to understand. Along the way, I haven’t understood, but I learned to listen. I can encourage and help someone who wants to be helped. It is not my job to understand everything, but I can be aware and listen.
When I hear of yet another celebrity suicide, I close my eyes and see that moment when I witnessed blood life draining out of another by her own hand and hear the ambulance sirens and feel the EMTs pushing past me and then recall the email I was sent confirming a fear I could not pinpoint long ago. And then I open my eyes wide and remember how that teenager is now a thriving adult with a firm place in this world and I brace myself for another risky round of life in honor of those who felt they could not do the same.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline phone number is 1-800-273-8255.