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Help People Decide What’s Best For Them Part 3 – Hear Needs
Offering referrals in suicide prevention is more art than science, however… Honing my intention over the years has turned my referrals from awkward and confused to helpful and precise. Anonymous chats in suicide support always have two needs. 1 >> The need to feel heard. I learned the hard way this one is meaningless. I…
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Help People Decide What’s Best For Them Part 2 – Triage
In suicide prevention I used to struggle with timing of referrals. Have I been listening for long enough? Are they looking to solve their problem, or am I just projecting my solution seeking? Do they feel like they’re ready to end? Here’s what experience has taught me in offering referrals that land, using triage. Separate…
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3 Tips For If A Friend Answers ‘No, I’m Not Okay’
I still remember the first time I said ‘no, I’m not ok’. I took a risk and put myself out there. My friend looked at me weirdly, told me they were sorry and awkwardly escaped… Hopefully these 3 tips help you out if you’re in their shoes. 1 >> Listen to your body. Sometimes we…
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Understand Empathy And 10X The Depth Of Your Connections
Empathy is imaginative. I think of empathy like painting a portrait in my mind’s eye, using only the words I’m listening to. The emotions I hear are the colours that inform this or that part. The background, the foreground. If I’ve been listening, this painting creates the empathy between us. I can tell when I’ve…
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3 Ways To Support In The Present Moment
Years of suicide support has shown me trauma finds relief in the present moment. These are the best tips I have to help you relieve people in distress. 1 >> Listen To Apply Your Imagination If I can’t picture what someone’s life is like, right now, I’m not doing it right. Maybe I’ve heard about…
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3 Sentence Stems To Bring People To The Present Moment
Acknowledge with empathy and validation first. Only then will attempts at bringing focus to the present moment become meaningful. 1 >> What impact has that had on you recently, like this past hour? I’m trying to draw attention to the present. I might start by asking how it’s affected things in a wider way, like…
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Understand These 2 Modes To Be Better In A Crisis
Urgency requires response, but triggers reaction. Reactions like: Your heart rate spikes Your breathing gets shorter Your stomach plummets Your thoughts start racing (oh shit is this really happening right now) After many years, my heart rate still jumps when urgency comes knocking. I have to remind myself it’s ok! These feelings are there to…
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Save Lives With Better Support By Responding Not Reacting
‘Signals’ come from the person we’re helping – ‘noise’ comes from within. Years in crisis support has shown me suicide prevention is less about what I say and more about what I hear. This may seem obvious but I used to find it super challenging! Reason being: ‘noise’ is very convincing. You can probably relate:…
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Simplify Suicide Support With The Scientist / Friend Model
Validation is surprisingly easy to overlook when learning non-judgement! I kept getting told collusion can be really dangerous in anonymous support, now I get why. Anonymity means as a listener I have to navigate lack of culpability! Collusion has to be consciously resisted or else I can do harm. When I first started I often…
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Here’s Why Your Compliments Get Ignored – Or Worse
What does every message have in common? Messages come in three parts: what you think you send, what you actually send & what they receive. Let’s ignore the first two as we have only 220 words left. In my early days of anonymous crisis support I’d try show people what strength they had. I’d do…
