Suicidality, Validation, and Adolescents – Part 1
Few things will strike a level of terror in parents or activate such intense reactions in service providers or school staff as that of adolescents who have expressed the wish to kill themselves. There is good reason for the fear. According to a 2020 research article, one-third of people globally who die by suicide are young people between the ages of 15-29 years. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in this age group across the world. Our adolescents are in a world of pain, and the parts of them that are suicidal have great power in such circumstances.
A plethora of suicide prevention and awareness programs work hard and often quite successfully to mitigate these numbers. But in the moment, when your child or your student or your client comes to you and says, “I keep thinking about suicide,” you’ve got to know what to do at that moment. Counterintuitively, the most important action to take is, paradoxically, not to go into problem-solving or intervention mode but to validate the adolescent you are sitting across from. Just as I’ve outlined in previous blogs, you can use the steps to sit with the child and validate their current state of being (in this case, suicidality), and then you’ll know better what the next step is.
If your child or student or client has come to you and has let you know that they are suicidal, already there is a measure of safety in place, a protective factor. That they have revealed their suicidal thoughts/feelings/sensations means there is a part of them seeking assistance, a part or parts of them that have no interest in dying and very much want to live. They have, as a result, turned to you.
What an enormous responsibility you’ve been given, and what a sacred one as well.
Uncovering the positive intentions in suicidality
One of the core concepts of an Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach to the human psyche is that all parts have positive intentions. So from the IFS perspective, suicidality represents a part of the person which has a positive intention for them. Surprising, isn’t it, that suicidality might have positive intention? There are all kinds of reasons that adolescents will threaten suicide alongside or besides the desire to just be done with life and all the pain that it brings. The impact of that intention, however, can be quite destructive, such as the suicidal part of individuals.
Here are some possible positive intentions of the suicidal part, though there may be others depending on the child, their history, and their current situation.
The part may hold the belief that suicide is the only answer to a seemingly unresolvable problem or unmitigated pain.
The part may feel that activating the feelings and words of a suicide threat is the way to get unmet needs addressed. This is and isn’t a form of manipulation.
The suicidal part may be offering a doorway out of intolerable pain. Not that the person would choose it. This is one of the great benefits of a suicidal part—that the adolescent is given a choice when they feel powerless everywhere else in their lives. That choice is sometimes the thing that keeps them from choosing suicide.
The part may hold the belief that their death is a gift they’re giving the world; that the world will be better off without them. In this way, the death of the individual is a way to redeem what seems and feels to be irredeemable or unforgivable.
You get the idea. Your job as the primary adult in this situation, the front line of defense, so to speak, is to find out why, if you can, the child’s suicidal part has shown up. And then validate it.
Is validating suicidality the same as giving permission to the person to go through with suicide?
We might think so and be quite wary of adding fuel to the fire. But no, it does not. If it doesn’t dampen the intensity of the fire, it will at the very least give you and the adolescent some breathing space. And in that space, you can decide what’s the best course of action to take. The teenager before you will benefit far more if you are deciding what to do from a calmed nervous system rather than from fear. In my experience, the suicidal part often shows up as a result of invalidation. To step into the field of the child’s suicidal feelings is a way to help them feel met, to help them feel connected.
If you’ve ever experienced suicidality, then you will recognize the awe-full power of feeling totally alone in an inescapable darkness. To be met there can mean everything to the child.
A suicidal teenager is a dysregulated teenager
That is, they are often flooded with parts of themselves that hold intolerable pain, shame, feelings of abandonment, loneliness that cannot be borne, or utter despair in the face of their lives. They need someone sitting across from them who can have their feet and mind on solid ground and not hijacked by their own nervous system. A tall order. The validation process can get you there, back to your own Ground of Being.
To validate a suicidal part, we follow the nine step process I’ve outlined just as you would validate any other behavior. Though the stakes are far higher and the territory more treacherous. It’s good to keep in mind that one of the tenets of IFS is that in the internal world of the psyche—and the suicidal part is a definitive aspect of the internal psychic landscape—nothing can harm us if we do not fear it. The same could be said for the person sitting across from the suicidal teenager. If we do not fear this suicidal part, the odds are in our and their favor that it will do no harm.
So, in the case of a suicidal adolescent you, as the adult that they have turned to, must step up to address your own fear. Doing your own work in and of itself can be intensely validating to the teenager. Up to this point in time, the child has most likely felt terribly alone in their emotional state. It is the intolerable pain of that loneliness that can drive a heartbroken, angry, defeated, and/or shamed teenager to shift into suicidality. If you can show up to them from a place of love and courage rather than fear and problem-solving, this can turn the tide.
A cautionary note
Never take a suicide threat, vague or otherwise, lightly. Always take it seriously no matter how many times they’ve spoken from this suicidal place, even if they have never made an attempt (that you know of). Validating the teenager you are with may not be the thing that brings them back from the edge. Further interventions may indeed be required. If you are unsure, a professional assessment will be in order. Regardless, this initial validating interaction you have together may be the life saver you’ve thrown out to them that has them holding on.
I will delve into the actual nine steps of the validation process regarding suicidal ideation in adolescents in the next blog. However, you have enough to begin the process here. Familiarize yourself with the working definition of validation.
To validate someone is to communicate with them in such a way that you elicit their embodied experience of feeling seen, heard, accepted, valued, and loved for who they are in the moment as they are.
Keep coming back to this if you feel your own fear and urgent parts taking over.
Don’t hesitate to take the next step, whether it be to take them to the emergency room or their therapist for assessment; call their therapist or primary care provider, or instigate a round-the-clock suicide watch. Always err on the side of safety and life-saving measures.
Just don’t underestimate the power of the validation process in your safety plan. It may be the thing, even above all else, that saves their life.