On the Phone With a Man About to Commit Suicide

His name was Jackson. He had a loaded gun. He was high on crack cocaine alone in a warehouse. It was a cocktail for a suicidal disaster, a lethal blend.

“Do you wanna hear me do it?” he said.

“No, I don’t,” I calmly replied.

As a suicide prevention counselor, this was to be the most intense call I would ever experience. For the next four hours, Jackson talked. Like a shiny chrome ball, his emotions ricocheted from bumper to bumper in a life or death pinball machine. He played both roles: gunman and hostage. I needed to reason with the gunman and reassure the hostage.

Emotionally exhausted and having run out of options, Jackson agreed to go to the hospital. Had he not reached out for help that night he would have more than likely been another suicide statistic.

As of 2018, there were reportedly 393 million guns in the United States. That’s one gun for every man, woman, and child, with 60 million left over. Americans added 40 million to the total in 2020.

In 36 U.S. states, one does not need a license, registration, or permit to own a gun. In Wyoming, one doesn’t even need a permit to carry one. Sadly, Wyomingites have the highest suicide rate in the nation: 31 suicides per 100,000 residents, while the national average is 7.3 gun suicides per 100,000 residents.

There are other means of suicide as lethal as a gun. Poisoning and slitting a wrist for example. But they are potentially reversible: a stomach can be pumped of an overdose of medication and a tourniquet can halt the bleeding of a wrist. But only Superman can stop a bullet. For the rest of us, once it leaves the chamber nothing can change its trajectory. The outcome is inevitable. The damage cannot be outdone.

Jackson ended up in the hospital later that morning. But that was not without an extreme level of anxiety on my part trying to get him there. The only option to transport him to the E.R. was by police cruiser. I feared that when the officers arrived on scene, Jackson might have mistakenly provoked them into taking lethal action: suicide by cop. It did not happen and he was taken away without incident. Disaster averted. Jackson literally dodged his own bullet.

There are many factors that edge one closer to the precipice of suicide: unresolved traumas; seemingly irreparable psychological damage; unprocessed feelings the result of sexual harassment, molestation, or rape; societal and financial pressures; racial and sexual orientation discrimination; untreated mental illness, especially PTSD, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia.

Those who suffer often turn to alcohol, drugs, food, sex, and gambling as a way to cope, a way to dull the pain, a way to survive the terror. However, paradoxically, while these substances and behaviors may be effective in the short term to sublimate the pain, they often exasperate the symptoms and lead to self-loathing, a lack of self-worth, and diminished self-care. Under these circumstances, people are more likely to act impulsively. Reasoning is less accessible, and for some, there's a tipping point. A loaded gun; pain that feels like it will never go away; a loss of hope; a finger on a trigger. It’s the recipe for a bloody disaster. Some will choose to take their finger off the trigger, some will choose to pull it. We will never really know why. The final act of a completed suicide will forever remain a mystery.