Suicide: Why do we do it?

One of the most interesting classes that I took as a patient at McLean Hospital was given by Dr. Taylor. In it, I learned a theory why people commit suicide. This class was unusual for many reasons. First it was unusual, because as we sat in the room, Dr. Taylor walked in with a few interns, who proceeded to close the door and guard it. The door was normally left open for classes.

Dr. Taylor proceeded to tell us that he was going to give a talk about feelings. He told us that when he had first started teaching the class the door was left open and this had been a problem. One patient hearing his talk left and tried to kill himself within minutes. Dr. Taylor explained that what he was about to teach us, was so powerful that, that we need to learn about it in order to keep from killing ourselves or doing something drastically.

First, he reviewed the cognitive behavior therapy(CBT) model, which states that our psychology can loosely be classified into three components: our feelings, our thoughts/beliefs, and our behaviors. Each influences the other. The one thing we cannot control is our feelings. Emotional health is defined in part as having an ability to recognize these three aspects of our thinking as well as learn how to use our thoughts and behaviors to regulate our feelings.

Dr. Taylor then began to explain the concept of emotive dissonance. Many people who are brought up in less than ideal conditions struggle because they do not know how to regulate their emotions and are often unaware of them. Emotional awareness and expression were repressed. As a result many people grow up relying on external cues to try to figure out how they feel.

Have you ever heard someone say “I think I feel…” That is emotive dissonance. Feelings are not thoughts. When people do this, it is because they don’t know how they feel, and their mind is actually thinking and trying to figure out how we feel. Our mind generates a feeling based upon an interpretation of the environment. Feelings are not something we figure out, they are something we just are aware of.

He explained that most of us were in the hospital because something major probably happened to us within the last two months. This statement received quizzical looks as people polled their lives and quickly nodded in understanding and agreement.

The reason this is the case, he explained, is that we relied on something external in our lives to help us figure out how we feel or to provide us with emotional regulation. When that thing is removed, we lose our ability to regulate and we find emotional distress.

People can go their whole lives relying on something. For example it can happen in a marriage when a partner dies, the survivor suddenly loses their ability to regulate.

When this external thing is lost, for many people their minds quickly begin to try find their emotions, and not being able to find them, the mind gets confused. There is a disconnect between our mind which says we are alive and our feelings which do not exist and we seem to feel dead. We conclude we are emotionally dead, and to fix this contradiction, our brain desires to make us physically dead to provide consistency.

It can be tempting as Dr. Taylor explained upon hearing this to try and understand your feelings, if you don’t, and that this is dangerous if you don’t have professional guidance. So his suggestion was don’t do it. Live with not understanding.