On May 13, 1996, in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Tullis, along with fifteen other
survivors of suicide attempts, founded Suicide Anonymous, a self-help program
for mutual support based on the model of Alcoholics Anonymous. The purpose
of the program is to provide a safe environment for people to share their
struggles with suicide, to prevent suicides, and to develop strategies for support
and healing from the devastating effects of suicidal preoccupation and behavior.
The need for such a program arises from an awareness that suicidal people in
the United States do not have safe places to talk honestly about their own
struggles with suicide. The stigma of suicide is enormous, both for surviving
family members and for surviving attempters. This stigma pervades every
segment of our society, including religious organizations and the mental health
field.
The church usually is not perceived as a safe place by people who struggle with
suicidal thoughts, behaviors, and/or attempts. The legacy that suicide is an
unforgivable sin is still learned by our children, whether or not the church
actively teaches such a doctrine, making it unlikely that teens or adults
struggling with the possibility of their own suicide will feel free to turn to the
church to share their struggle.
Partially by default, the mental health field inherited the problem of suicide as
the concept of suicide evolved from a “sin” into a “product of mental illness” over
the last century in the United States. Yet, the mental health field is not always
perceived as a safe place by people who struggle with suicide. Mental health
professionals are bound by law to intervene with suicidal patients, usually
forcing appropriate psychiatric hospitalization. With such a threat of
hospitalization or with hospitalization itself, suicidal patients “clam up” about their
struggles with suicide, producing an unsafe environment for sharing the full truth
about their struggle.
Suicide Anonymous, therefore, came forward to offer a safe place for suicidal
people to share their stories of struggle with suicide and to develop strategies
for mutual support and healing.
The following tools have evolved:
1. Discussion meetings – during one hour meetings, topics are presented
by a chairperson and members share their experience or simply listen. Cross
talking, that is responding to a member’s comments, is discouraged to allow free
discussion without criticism. The last fifteen minutes is reserved for members to
get current about how they are dealing with suicide. Experience has shown that
talking openly abut suicide with people who understand the problem lessens the
shame and stigma, combats isolation, and teaches the suicidal person that it is
safe to reach out for support in a crisis.
2. Phone lists – exchanging phone numbers among group members
provides a valuable resource for crises between meetings, especially late at
night. At first reluctant to bother others, most members learn to reach out to
fellow members for support in a suicidal crisis. Members receiving calls feel
useful and experience the other end of a suicidal crisis.
3. Sponsorship – new members pick older members to be sponsors to guide
them through the Twelve Steps. Both people benefit enormously from the
experience and learn that they are not alone in their struggle with suicide.
4. Speaker meetings – at regular intervals a member shares his or her life
story and experience with suicide at a meeting open to members and the public.
In sharing his or her story, the teller overcomes the shame and stigma of a life of
struggle with suicide while the listener identifies with the story and breaks
through denial of the full extent of his or her own struggle.
5. Bottom lines – members select bottom line behaviors for themselves.
Bottom line behaviors are their component behaviors of suicide, including such
things as hoarding pills for overdose, suicidal fantasies, or compulsively driving
through cemeteries. Members commit to stop bottom line behaviors one day at a
time, pick up a white poker chip at a meeting to symbolize the commitment, and
receive colored chips to mark periods of abstinence from the behavior.
© 1996 by Suicide Anonymous. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from Suicide Anonymous.
History of Suicide Anonymous |
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