The reality is if I had us all raise our hands, if you had a suicidal thought, I've got my hand up. I think we all do. Now, maybe not everybody. First of all, it's normal, and it's something that we are not afraid to talk about. We experience these emotions where we want to escape away from whatever it is we're feeling.
Maybe it's a breakup. Maybe it's a loss of some other thing. The question, will we ever overcome them? I would suggest that it's not overcoming, we have them. As they come, we teach ourselves and our children that when we have these thoughts, We pause for a little bit and say, what is this interesting thing? That I'm feeling right now. Is it pain? Is it trying to escape? Am I wanting to punish somebody else? We're talking about emotional regulation for all of us. We all get to learn how to deal with difficult, hurtful, painful emotions. Again, going back to the concept, we want to model this for our children.
If you've had a suicidal thought, don't be afraid to say, you know, I've actually felt that way. And it's not hard, it's not embarrassing to talk about, because this is life. I look at my own suicidal thoughts and say, What an interesting thing that is. I love life. And it does get hard sometimes. But, I know I can make it through that.
I know that our children can too, as long as we help them understand that there's a safe place to go to, that they can always talk, and we can always know that there's going to be somebody who cares, somebody who will help us make sense of these feelings. Will they overcome them, or will they stay with them forever?
I'm going to say that most of us who have suicidal thoughts, we have no desire to take it to the next level and act on it. But if you ever do, I might say to my child, if you ever do just know that I'm here at any time, I don't care day, night, morning, whatever it is, promise me. And I'll promise you that if I ever have this feeling, I'm going to reach out because we don't have to do it alone. In this relationship, we'll figure it out.
