JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Our next story is about suicide. Surveys show that a majority of Americans know that suicide is preventable, but when it comes to helping a loved one in crisis, most people don't know what to do. Now, one woman in the United Kingdom who's cared for loved ones struggling with suicidal thoughts is teaching others what she has learned along the way, and she's doing it using art. NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee brings us her story.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: When Jo Lambert first found out that a loved one was feeling suicidal, she had no idea what to do.
JO LAMBERT: I felt out of my depth, powerless, completely ill-equipped to help my loved one.
CHATTERJEE: She felt overwhelmed by her fears.
LAMBERT: I was so panicked by the grief I might experience if my loved one died that it prevented me from giving my loved one what they needed.
CHATTERJEE: She's not identifying her loved one because of the sensitivity of the issue. Over time, through trial and error, Lambert learned that she had to put her own feelings aside in the moment and focus on the person in front of her.
LAMBERT: As soon as I detached myself from the outcome and made this about the person in the crisis, fully, that was when I got the hang of it.
CHATTERJEE: A couple of years ago, Lambert cofounded a project, along with other people with lived experience of suicidality and someone grieving a suicide death. The group wanted to make a short, educational film about preventing suicide informed by their collective experiences. Lambert wrote a poem, called "Hold The Hope," and used it to narrate the film.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LAMBERT: (Reading) Will you hold the hope for me? I feel I've lost my way. I need you to be strong for me and help me find the strength to stay.
CHATTERJEE: But she says she'd always heard the poem as a song in her head. So this year, she worked with a composer to bring the song to life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Vocalizing).
LAMBERT: It's a song that grounded me and helped me survive through my loved one's crisis.
CHATTERJEE: She recruited a group of volunteers, students, health care workers and people with lived experience to record the song.
LAMBERT: This is the voices of those who regularly return to acts of suicidality and are surviving it because of the compassion of others.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Reading) Can you be strong enough, stay by my side for long enough? Will you keep trying till you've done enough, so I abandon what I've planned?
CHATTERJEE: Line after line, the song stresses the importance of emotional safety for the person in crisis.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Reading) Keep safe this place for me. Hold my gaze. Don't look away. Meet my hurt head on. Don't leap back in alarm. Stay focused, steady, calm.
CHATTERJEE: The song uses spoken word, passing the poems lines from one voice to another.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Reading) I need you to hold on for me. Embrace my human...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Reading) Frailty. Observe my torment. Share my pain. Help me believe that things can change.
CHATTERJEE: Lambert says that's because a person in crisis feels completely hopeless.
LAMBERT: And they're perhaps too exhausted, too traumatized. They've experienced a series of crushing blows where they feel there's no alternative except to end their life. And it's about trying to offer an alternative.
CHATTERJEE: Lambert now works for the U.K.'s National Health System Trust in southwest London. She coordinates suicide prevention awareness training for schools, health care settings, first responders. Her boss, Justine Trippier, is a psychiatric nurse who's been doing suicide prevention work for years. Trippier says using the film in her training has made the sessions more engaging.
JUSTINE TRIPPIER: It feels like people are more open to share, to discuss and to really pull out what the difficulties are for them.
CHATTERJEE: Sometimes it's a person who has lost a loved one who's suicidal. Other times, it's a new health care worker.
TRIPPIER: And they had their first suicide and how they emotionally can, you know, manage that.
CHATTERJEE: Trippier and Lambert now want to use the song to bring its lessons to a wider audience. Those lessons are just the kind of advice that suicide prevention experts here in the U.S. give to health care workers and others caring for suicidal individuals.
URSULA WHITESIDE: We give the advice, first and foremost, when you're sitting with somebody who's struggling with suicidal thoughts, is to not panic.
CHATTERJEE: Psychologist Ursula Whiteside runs Now Matters Now in Washington state. It's a nonprofit working on suicide prevention.
WHITESIDE: And then secondarily, to be present with that person, like, to be in the room with them as much as possible, to be, like, a real human with them.
CHATTERJEE: Again, it's about providing a sense of emotional safety. Whiteside listened to Lambert's song after I sent a link to it. She says she was moved, both as a health care provider and as someone who's also struggled with suicidal thoughts.
WHITESIDE: What's really impressive about this is that it is people saying what would be helpful. Like, this is what I want you to do. And for so long, that side of things has been left out, not considered, not asked.
CHATTERJEE: And featuring those experiences, she says, is also a reminder that with the right help, people can and do choose life despite feeling suicidal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Reading) Will you acknowledge what it takes to keep on living when you feel you're going to break? Can you turn...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Reading) Stick around and stay, see my staying power instead?
CHATTERJEE: Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR News.
SUMMERS: If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Reading) Reflect and validate...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Reading) Reflect and validate and hold the hope for me. But can I trust you? Tell you how I'm feeling as I must do? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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