Blows of fate, crushing failures and painful losses can accompany a person at any stage of life. Sometimes it happens that the world loses its colors, hope disappears, the meaning of existence disappears. It is in moments like these that the desire to fight and continue to exist disappears. And many begin to wonder what to do if they don’t want to live at all? These types of difficult moments must be overcome against all odds, even when you want to give up. It doesn’t matter what depressing and painful situations a person faces during a period of life. It is important not to succumb to their influence. After all, every day you live brings with it something new, previously unknown, and interesting. Today the sky is black and there is a thunderstorm, and tomorrow the sky will sparkle with a variety of colors reflected in the warm sunshine.
A similar thing happens in human existence. It’s as if there is no way out of the host of problems today, but tomorrow something happens that solves all the problems in one fell swoop. After all, everything can be improved or corrected, only death is irreversible. Therefore, as long as a person exists physically, hope must always glimmer within him.
“I don’t want to live anymore.” What to say to a desperate person?
Komarova Vera Leonidovna - psychologist, certified specialist in family constellations : I don’t want to live anymore - sometimes these words come out of the mouth thoughtlessly, when a person is upset, tired after a hard day at work, something doesn’t work out according to his wishes, children don’t listen... Another thing when a relative or loved one died. And there is a situation when a person really doesn’t want to live, for example, he finds out about his illness and he has a choice: to do something or fold his arms and do nothing. There are many situations when a person thinks about not wanting to live. When a person talks about this to family, friends, neighbors (whom he considers necessary and important), he expects moral support, wants to get strength for life, just to talk it out, he is looking for support in life. Those to whom he addresses sometimes become frightened (the topic of death is scary for many) and, on the contrary, stop communicating with him, someone says that “here I am...” and then there are instructions for survival, suitable only for those who it was created and used to using it, but not by the one who converted. A person often does not realize where this reluctance to live comes from. What lies on the surface is not always the true cause of the desire for death. A psychologist will help you figure this out. The reasons are deeper. People who are close to a person who is in a difficult psychological state can tactfully suggest ways out of this state, suggesting that it is better to consult a specialist than to try, as in a fairy tale, to pull yourself out of the place where you find yourself (from a state of melancholy , despair, hopelessness). Or give, for example, a link to a site where there are smart consultants and a professional forum. Or give the phone numbers of psychologists (several, so that a person can make a choice in this simple matter, then it will be easier for him to make a choice between the decision to live or die). If a person makes up his mind and comes to a consultation with a psychologist, we can say with confidence that he wants to live, he has motivation, he just needs help to understand the situation. Let me give you some examples. This may be a reluctance to come to terms with the death of a loved one - “I’m coming for you.” A person takes care of a seriously ill person and spends a lot of physical and moral energy - “Better me than you.” Or many feel “guilt” in the death of another person, arrogantly believing that they can control human destinies. Sometimes a person is identified with a deceased (or expelled) member of the clan (an aborted brother or sister, a tragically deceased grandmother, a drug-addicted relative, etc.) and bears his fate, as if reminding him that that person has the right to his place in the system. It is important to accept the illnesses that arise in a person, and not fight them, ignoring them, cursing them, asking why this is to me. It all starts in family stories. The interrupted movement of love from mother (and father) to the child can be restored so that a person can receive support and strength to live from exactly where he got the most important thing - Life - from mom and dad. Systemic family constellations (according to B. Hellinger’s method) allow a person to understand the intertwining of the history of the family and clan. Loginov Konstantin Anatolyevich, practical psychologist, Gestalt therapist, associated trainer of the Gestalt approach, employee of the psychological center “Here and Now” , consultant of the portal www.psyforum.ru: We can hear the frightening phrase “I don’t want to live anymore” in different situations and for quite different reasons. Most likely, having heard such a confession, many of us will begin to actively persuade the person to live on. In order to understand how constructive this model of behavior is, let’s answer three questions: who said it, what it really means, and what exactly is expected of you. Who can tell you about their unwillingness to live? It’s hard to imagine that this is a person who sat next to you on a trolleybus for a minute. Most likely, this will be a person close enough to you and not indifferent to you, whose life means something to you, and his loss will be painful. What do they want to tell you and what are they waiting for? If a person really doesn’t want to live, he simply does something to end his life, and does not talk to you about it. Therefore, such a phrase carries not so much information about intentions as a hidden appeal to you. Two criteria will help you navigate: an assessment of the situation in which you heard this phrase, and the emotions that arose in response. So, at the funeral of a friend, the phrase of his crying wife - “I miss you so much that I don’t want to live anymore” - will evoke sympathy, pity, and sadness. And if at the moment of a quarrel you hear: “You ruined my life so much that I don’t want to live anymore,” you may have completely different feelings: anger, fear, guilt, resentment. These are two completely different motives: - You are told about a high, almost unbearable degree of mental tension; - They are trying to manipulate you . In the first option, a person faces some change in his reality. The number of emotions is so great that it becomes difficult to imagine that they can be experienced. In this case, the statement about not wanting to live is an attempt to communicate one’s suffering: “It’s very painful for me and it’s difficult to get over what happened.” If you recognize that similar emotional stress is being communicated to you, one appropriate option would be to sympathize and mention that you too have faced similar experiences that were also difficult for you and took time to process: “I sympathize with you and understand.” , it’s not easy for you. When I lost my parents, it seemed to me that there was a hole in me into which all my feelings went. It took me a while to get over this loss.” The second motive is a way to achieve a certain scenario. They are trying to blackmail you, blame you and make you responsible for the current state of affairs: “You are to blame for my failures, so do as I want, otherwise it will be worse.” When faced with something like this, it is important to keep your distance without trying too much to sympathize, reassure or care. It is more important not to take responsibility for the life of another person, and to substantively designate the boundaries of your joint participation in the current situation: “I cannot be responsible for what you can do to yourself. I admit my responsibility in that I was rarely sincere with you, but I also think that you did not make enough efforts for us to discuss this earlier.” No matter what sauce is seasoned with the “I don’t want to live anymore” dish, you can be sure that they want attention and emotional involvement from you. In the Western world, death is a frightening event that is spoken about extremely rarely and with extreme caution. Therefore, any mention is doomed to clash with strong feelings and threatens to fall into the trap of fear and addiction. Marchevskaya Elena Borisovna - psychological consultant, member of the Professional Psychotherapeutic League and the European Association of Transactional Analysis (EATA ), certified specialist of the European Association of Counseling, consultant of the Psychological Navigator portal: Often behind the words “I don’t want to live anymore” there is hidden “I don’t want to live like this anymore”...If If we look at this situation from the point of view of Transactional Analysis, then we will hear in this statement the voice of a Child who is tired of following Parental instructions, hoping to find the promised happiness (joy, success, love, etc.). He is disappointed in the power of the Parent, but he is also unable to abandon him, because the Child needs care, support and wise guidance. At the same time, the person ignores the power of his own Adult, from whom the necessary support and care can come. To help a person move through despair and release the power of his Adult, you need to: • start by listening. Without judging, without judging. Even if you are shocked by his story, don't show it. • check whether there is a real danger of suicide (is it talking about planned suicide, etc.) and be sure to warn that you will not keep this information secret. • do not offer simple explanations of the situation, such as “you’re just tired” and also do not offer simple solutions: “go for a walk, eat something tasty and relax.” • support a desperate person. Remind him that no matter how bad he feels now, this condition will not last forever. Despair is a sign of crisis...It is a turning point. In the very heart of despair there is the energy of constructive anger to break through Parental prohibitions and take a step towards yourself, your own life. Olshansky Dmitry Aleksandrovich - specialist in Lacanian psychoanalysis , private psychoanalyst (St. Petersburg): From time to time thinking about the meaning of life and its meaninglessness is a completely common activity for a person. This is not a reason to start treatment and not a reason to rush to treat those who come to the conclusion that they no longer want to live. or as they say in Hollywood films, between “doesn’t want to live” and “want to die” - there will always be some helper. The very formulation of the question already suggests that there is a loved one who should say something in this situation or do something. That is, there is already a subject of guilt: if the other no longer wants to live, then this is my problem, it means I have something to do with this and it is I who am responsible for it and must take steps. As if the blame for suicide lies not with the “desperate person”, but not with the one “who should say something.” And guilt, as practice shows, is a screen for unconscious desire: we can only be guilty of what we ourselves wanted. Another question is what exactly a person should do if his loved one wants to stop living. As with any symptom, there can be no universal “what to say?” advice. The question is, “who” and “to whom” should this be said? After all, often thoughts of suicide come to mind precisely when those close to you do not perceive you as a subject, when you do not exist for others, in this case suicide becomes the only independent act, the only way to attract attention to yourself. It's easy to part with something that never belonged to you. And a life that was dictated not by your own desires, but by other people’s demands has little value for yourself, so turning into a corpse, an object, is the best way to give others exactly what they wanted from you. In this situation, the key question is not “what”, but “who”; it is this question that will allow one to avoid objectification, universality, and see behind a seemingly common problem a person’s independent desire (even if it is a desire to stop living). Why exactly YOU don't want to live? Popova Olga Fedorovna - psychotherapist, psychologist : Psychology, unfortunately, does not pay enough attention to the problem of suicide, mostly devoting this topic to psychiatry. And what can I say - a complex topic concerning the sphere of a person’s relationship with himself. Guarantees of personal freedom allow a person to build within himself such fair relationships as each person understands for himself, because the nature of these relationships, their nature is not described by either law or right. Attempts to describe how a person should or should not believe, in whom to believe, how a person should think, what to think about, dream about himself... look like an attack on his personal freedom. At one time, in “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus wrote: “There is only one truly serious problem - the problem of suicide. To decide whether life is or is not worth living is to answer a fundamental question in philosophy. Everything else...is secondary. These are the conditions of the game: first of all, you need to give an answer.” In my opinion, every person professes his own philosophy of life, in which with every day he lives he answers these and other existential questions: “Why did I live this day? What is the time of my life filled with? Does my life have meaning? Do I like living the way I live? Do I have the right to be myself in my life? Can I bear my life like this? Sometimes a person does not find a positive answer for himself and decides to take the last desperate step directed against life - towards death. Some people choose life because... are afraid of death, others choose death because they are afraid of life. And here it is important to be able to convey to the client the idea that “how, when, why” to die means no more and no less than “how, when and why” to live. The courage to stay alive is akin to the courage to die; only by choosing life, a person chooses himself. At this very moment, he does not betray himself, does not renounce himself, but realizing how weak, stupid, terrible he can be, what Nietzsze called “internal evil in a person” remains to live. This really takes courage! But courage will not come to the client without restoring trust in himself. And here it is important for the psychotherapist to see in the client and understand his personal values, to remind him of his abilities, talents, opportunities in life that are open to this person, so that he can realize his values, realize his cherished dreams and take this wonderful “risk” - stay alive. And it is important for the psychotherapist to get and stay precisely in the territory of the soul of such a client, because the essence of the issue is not the position “for” or “against” suicide, but what this action means for the client himself, for his personality, his internal and external world . It is necessary, together with the client, to come to an understanding of the meaning of this person’s choice - suicide. Understand why the client chose this particular path as the only possible one for himself, why he does not see and neglects other options? After all, suicide is a departure from the intolerance of life, it is an entry into death, a very emotionally strong experience that awakens in a person the deepest feelings, thoughts and fantasies of his soul. And here, too, there is a huge field for joint research and psychotherapeutic work! Anton Mikhailovich Nesvitsky - psychologist, psychotherapist , consultant of the “Mirror of the Soul” project: As work experience shows, in a situation where a person does not want to live, there are two main points. The first of them is the demand for attention from this person. As a rule, in a situation where there is such a statement and it is expressed to someone (a psychologist, a friend, relatives, in general at least somehow voiced) - there is still a chance to help. Because when a person has decided to die and no longer needs anyone’s support, he remains silent and fulfills his plans. If he voiced a desire to die, this suggests that if he is given some help and support, he may change his mind over time. And here it is not so important what exactly to say, it is important to just give warmth, pay attention to his problems, listen, start offering at least some options for getting out of the current situation. Attention itself will be the help that a person needs, and there is a chance that, having felt not alone and not indifferent, he himself will eventually find the strength and motive to live. The second point is the loss of meaning. And if we talk about working methods, then the psychologist is faced with the task of turning to the categories of a person’s personal meaning. In this case, as practice shows, appeals to surrounding factors - family, friends, relatives of a desperate person - are not entirely effective; here it is necessary to search for the meaning of this person’s life, regardless of the surrounding circumstances. And for this, the surest way is to search for a person’s true desires, what he wanted to achieve in life, but for some reason could not do this, or did not find these very true desires. As a rule, when working with such people, a large layer of suppression of one’s problems, expectations from the world, and a large layer of various kinds of introjects are revealed. To put it simply, it often happens that a person does not live his own life, but having limited himself to attitudes taken from his parents or society, he is afraid to realize himself the way he himself would like, he believes that he has no right or does not deserve what is truly his would motivate me to live life to the fullest. In this case, it is necessary to find these limiting beliefs and help the person reconsider them. It also happens that the reason for thoughts about leaving life is addiction - from a husband/wife, parents, children who for some reason passed away (from life, or broke off a relationship) - in these cases, as a rule, you can find the origins of addiction , and the basis of any addiction is insufficient recognition of one’s own worth, dislike for oneself, and the inability to give oneself support and support. And you can help a person understand the roots of such an attitude towards himself, help him develop other principles of interaction with himself. It also happens that the cause of this state is long-suppressed resentment, anger, aggression, to which a person does not give himself the right, and it results in chronic self-blame and self-destruction on an unconscious, and then on a conscious level. If you summarize - the most important thing that a psychologist and any close person can do at his own level is to show a desperate person of himself - his value, his importance, his significance, his uniqueness as a person in the world and teach him to relate to his Persons with respect, introduce your feelings and desires and help them correctly express them. Chusovkova Anna Vasilievna Psychologist: I had experience in communicating with such a person ... She turned to me with what she wanted to die. There was a feeling that she came to say goodbye to me. This is a strange sensation ... As if there is some line between you and the person, and if a person makes a final decision, then I will not see him anymore. This woman had a difficult divorce, there are children, grandchildren, but she did not want to stay more. What to do? If a person has come to you, then he cannot actually just die. He came to say something, hear, do. In this situation, a person looks at you as someone who remains in the room called life, and he leaves ... I asked her: “You have the feeling that you have not done something in this life and you can not completely leave ?. She replied that yes, but she could not understand what it was. After a certain work related to relations with my mother, understanding of himself in this situation, we found that she still holds her here ... The next day she called me and said: "I decided to stay." The whole difficulty is to understand, to feel and realize what exactly does not allow a person to die and what needs to be done and say so that he remains. After all, we will always be able to leave, but to return ... There is such an assumption that we all pass some kind of lesson in life, and if you have not passed it now, then you still have to go through it, but in another life. Thus, you seem to remain 2 times in the classroom. And if you feel that you haven’t done something in life, take your time, try to do it, figure it out to the end. After all, we all will still have to die, another thing, with which you leave this planet, what you did here. And only your feeling can tell you whether you made this decision in time or not. If not, then let's talk about it now ...
Take an internet detox
In 1998, American psychologist Robert Kraut discovered the Internet Paradox that the more time a person spends on the Internet, the higher his risk of becoming depressed. About 25% of social network users are susceptible to Evolutionary Psychology and 'Facebook Depression', which occurs due to the fact that a person had to deal with bullying, insults or envy.
According to the American study If Facebook Use Causes Envy, Depression Could Follow, 58% of social network users, comparing their life with the posts of Internet friends, evaluate it negatively and feel like failures. Constantly looking back at others and reading posts about other people's achievements can greatly undermine your self-esteem. And this is hardly what is needed for a person who already has neither the strength nor the mood.
For a period of rest and restoration of resources, it may be worth giving up social networks. Or limit their use to the necessary minimum. The same applies to any “motivational” literature. It’s better to read about how to earn more and live brighter when you have the strength to do all this.
Try it
