Published on 12, July, 2020
I've written on here many times as my obsession is with suicide prevention, which I have got caught up with in a big way, but do not want to die , but realise that we autistics have a very high risk of this.
I've tried the usual things with drugs, psychotherapy etc and in my quest (as a research doctor) , I ve now set up a major research group , with many of the National experts in the country. It has taken years to get to this point but we are approaching a launch and I wondered about others opinions as to a useful avenue.
Existing services are largely medical ( with no evidence they save lives) and listening eg Samaritans (who NEVER give advice), but always listen and chat to ask you about your worries.
We will have a launch to thousands of people. and I feel we need a NEW service that is effective. Many suicidal thoughts relate to problems which are not medical (they are about relationships, finance, legal matters etc) so my idea is to give free access to any experts who wish to register and help with suicidal distress with anonymised (safe advice) I know my problems would have been helped with legal advice, rather than medical.
So FREE EXPERT ADVICE , but creation of a record to monitor peoples requests/ story / perhaps suicide risk factors and safety factors
Do you think this service would be useful and popular? It would all be free and rely on people donating their expertise for free (anonymised).
It would all be on an anonymised database (which could be researched) , but data GDPR security would be essential.
Any thoughts?
Wow let's hope the world has more people like you in it in decades to come.Yes I been on suicide watch with my son its just awfull and because he sometimes can't communicate and has flat affect on his face you have know way of knowing if he's getting suicidal again. If it helps I will share with you....my son told me he was a whisker away from dragging the blade across his wrists but only reason he didn't go through with it was because we had had a conversation previously..( it was in the throws of covid and there was in general a lot of depression and suicides happening due to how horrendous things got..) and because of how things were at that point I shared with him openly how I myself was feeling very down and that I'd actually felt suicidal but had not done it because the only thing I cared about in this world was him and that I couldn't do that to him and how selfish of me it would be..so he said he thought about that conversation and didn't go through with it because he realised it isn't fair to those people you leave behind ie me his mum..at this point I realised it is beneficial to have these conversations however hard they may be because if that conversation had not taken place he wouldn't be here today.
Yes that is also the major reason I continue......... I think that the right conversation with the right person at the right time , would greatly help . Many of us could look back and say " if only I'd been told......."