Vitamodo School · Bundle 2: Suicide Recognition & Prevention · Brochure 4 of 10 · Version 1.0
Andris Saulitis, MD
If you are yourself currently considering suicide, this brochure is not the right place to start. Please reach out to a crisis line or emergency service now.
Latvia: 116123
European Union: 112
United States: 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline)
United Kingdom: 116 123 (Samaritans)
For other countries: findahelpline.com
For those who: are family, partner, or close friend of someone who has survived a suicide attempt, and want to know how to support the year that comes after.
Not for those who: are themselves at risk — see the crisis lines above and reach out before reading further.
What this is — the clinical reality
This brochure is for the family member, partner, or close friend of someone who has survived a suicide attempt. The medical care that follows an attempt is provided by hospitals and clinicians. The recovery that follows the medical care happens elsewhere — in the home, in the relationships, in the long stretch of months that begins after discharge. The work of that recovery is shared between the person who survived and the people closest to them. This brochure is about your half of the work.
Three things you need to know.
The first is that the year that follows a survived attempt is the highest-risk year for a new attempt. This is not metaphor. The clinical literature is consistent: the period immediately after discharge from hospital, particularly the first three months, carries the highest re-attempt rate of any stretch in the person's life. This means the work of recovery is not over when the medical crisis is over. It is, in a clinical sense, just beginning.
The second is that the hardest part of the first year is not medical. The hardest part is the conversation that has to happen — between the person who survived and the people closest to them — about what was almost done, and what now comes next. Most families do this conversation badly, in the predictable ways: they avoid it (the silence becomes its own pressure), they overhandle it (the survivor becomes a fragile object), they make it about themselves (the survivor must take care of the family's hurt), or they treat it as past (the next attempt is being silently prepared while the family talks about going to dinner). The conversation, done badly, increases risk. Done well, it lowers it.
The third is that recovery is not a return to how things were. This is the most common family misconception, and the one most directly associated with poor outcomes. "Let's just put this behind us. Let's get back to normal." The person you want back is the same person whose previous life produced the attempt. The work of recovery is not to restore that life. The work is to build a different one — slowly, in the same body, with the same relationships, but with what was missing before now being addressed.