Quebec Suicide Prevention Handbook , livre ebook

Éditions TNT - Colin Mcgregor , Raymond Viger

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42 pages

English

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There is no one set formula for why decent people come to consider suicide. Each comes to the edge of their personal cliff in their unique way. The journey a person takes from loss to suicide is for most people - especially for youth - the same down ward spiral. The trajectory is remarkably similar similar - and preventable, if help is offered soon enough, is caring, humane manner.
Raymond Viger, writer, activist, is veteran of over 20 years working as a suicide prevention counselor in Montreal and in Quebec's for northern communities. His franch-language handbooks have helped thousands. To produce this English adaptation he teams with Colin McGregor, journalist and teacher, whose 23 years' experience as detainee in some of Canada's grimmest prisons lend this work depth. The knowledge and techniques in this handbook are meant to be used in any crisis situation: a valuable resource for interveners and sufferers alike.

Sujets

Santé et bien-être

Santé mentale & traumatisme

Vie de famille

Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux

Sociologie, société et politique

Psychology

Suicide

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Publié par	Éditions TNT
Date de parution	26 janvier 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782923375434
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0274€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Quebec Suicide Prevention Handbook
A Reference for Fieldworkers and All Citizens
By Colin McGregor and Raymond Viger
Published by
Les Éditions TNT
4233 Ste-Catherine east,
Montreal, (Quebec) H1V 1X4
(514) 256-9000 Fax: (514) 256-9444
raymondviger@editionstnt.com
www.editionstnt.com
Cover illustration, graphic design
JuanCa
Copyright
Colin McGregor - Raymond Viger
The words printed herein make up a small slice of the story of our world. They have not been written selfishly, to be kept to ourselves. They are to be shared, offered in all humility, simply presented, and with love for you, the reader.
The partial reproduction of passages from this book is authorized for non-profit purposes, as long as the original source is mentioned and referenced.
Legal Deposit Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
Legal Deposit Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-2-923375-05-2
ISBN PDF 978-2-923375-23-6
ISBN EPUB 978-2-923375-43-4
Printed in Canada

Quebec Suicide Prevention Handbook
A Reference for Fieldworkers and All Citizens
By Raymond Viger and Colin McGregor
But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters, they want to know which tools .
They never ask why build .
- Anne Sexton, American poet, Wanting to Die,
1964 (Anne Sexton committed suicide in 1974)

FOREWORD by Colin McGregor
When I was a journalist in Montreal in the 1980s, the media did not report suicides as a matter of policy. It would simply encourage more, went the logic in the city’s newsrooms. There was a general sense that Quebec had more suicides than anywhere else you could think of. But given that people never discussed the subject, it was difficult to put your finger on the extent of the problem.
It was known that families, not wanting the shame and humiliation of a suicide in their midst, would often cover up family suicides, listing the death as from some other cause – especially when these deaths involved teens. In elementary school, I recalled, the teacher one morning announced to us that the older brother of an absent classmate had drowned in the bathtub the night before. That was Quebec, and suicide.
Suicide creates havoc within a family. It makes waves. But like the ripples on a pond, these waves dissipate. All that is left is the human tragedy of a young life cut short before it had time to blossom. All the good a young person could have produced in their lifetime, all the hopes and dreams, all the children and grandchildren they would have produced, die with them. And for what? To forget a lost love he or she would have moved on from in a few weeks? To leave behind problems for others to solve?
Raymond Viger has worked for more than two decades in the taxing, difficult field of youth suicide prevention. I have spent that same length of time behind bars, and have seen a lot of people end their own lives out of despair and anguish. I have thought about doing the same myself, quite seriously, but not for many years. If the product of our experience can prevent one early, senseless passing, this work has served its purpose.
This handbook is dedicated to all those who could not face their demons adequately, and chose the easy, fast, final way out. Their passage is regretted. Their love lives on. May their numbers decrease, even a little, in its good use. It is directed to prevention workers and sufferers alike.
The original French language booklet written by activist Raymond Viger, L’intervention de crise auprès d’une personne suicidaire, has helped thousands since it first appeared in 1996. So has Raymond, a decent man, a humanitarian, and a friend. Anything helpful in this work springs from the many thankless hours he has spent talking down young people who considered suicide when their rainbow wasn’t enough.
Appreciative thanks to Ron M., Tim S. and H.M. for their help with this work.
Cowansville, Qc, 2014.

How To Keep Decent People from Considering Suicide
The human psyche is not a world of straight lines and precise systems. It is a maze, full of nooks and crannies. Its pathways harbor mysterious dark corners and challenging obstacles; turnoffs leading to sudden glimpses of glory, or of shame. One never knows what lurks in the heart. Not even your own. The principles and suggestions set down here are meant to dissuade suicide, not to cure all phobias.
The idea is to keep the machine running and not to try to fix the machine until it is as good as new. The brain, three pounds of gray jelly perched between our ears, is in many ways a mystery to modern science: 100 billion neurons packed closely together, humming away in ways we can only guess at. But the brain of the person contemplating ending it all works in some specific ways we can observe, over time: knowing tried and true methods to turn this suicide process around is the subject of this guide.

At the beginning of his novel Anna Karenina , an epic tale of failed love, Russian author Leo Tolstoy observes this: All happy families are happy in the same way, but all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. This is true for people on the brink: there is no one set formula for why decent people come to consider suicide. Each comes to the edge of their personal cliff in their unique way. There are similarities, but no one narrow path is beaten to that ledge. Nor is there one set, easy formula for getting people to choose life over death.
Nonetheless, the journey a person takes from loss to suicide is for most people – especially for youth – the same downward spiral. No matter what the person’s disposition and character, sex or income level, hard experience has taught the prevention community to see the commonality in what these sufferers feel and live. The trajectory is remarkably similar.
Spot the signs, know how to intervene at the appropriate stage in the process, and you can keep people active and alive on this marvelous planet we co-inhabit.

How Did Raymond Viger Become a Suicide Prevention Counselor? He describes his journey…
I began my working life in the field of biochemical engineering. My life was not glamorous. I spent my days sealed away in a laboratory, slicing rats. I felt isolated. I soon switched to the more dashing field of aviation. For five years I trained charter aircraft pilots and bush pilots. That experience led me into the business and corporate world.
Nothing in my background foreshadowed my eventual career switch into the world of counseling. But I had crashed and burned. Stress had caught up with me. Early in my 30s, with two suicide attempts to my credit and a happy marriage disintegrated, I was forced to reconsider my path in life. I studied psychotherapy – first and foremost, so I could work on myself. To keep me out of an early grave. Like the scientist I was trained to be, I took my life apart and examined it piece by piece. Events over the years had accumulated to the point that I’d become a fragile, vulnerable soul. I was defenseless; my life had descended into a perpetual state of crisis.
Once I’d unburdened myself of many of my demons, I felt ready to enroll in a psychotherapist’s course. I had no intention of saving the world. But I wanted to stay true to my principles, my values, my new way of life. Working with the distressed was a selfish act – a personal life insurance policy tucked into my back pocket, there in case the black dog of depression showed up at my door once more. Trained in crisis intervention, I could build my own private lighthouse and watch for the telltale signs of turbulent seas before the tsunami. I built a personal and professional support system. It was, I hoped, sufficiently large for any cries for help to be heard before it was too late.
To realize you need help takes a lot of humility. I apprenticed as an aide to my own personal psychotherapist; then I spread my wings and took flight myself. I felt oddly at ease as those in distress came to see me with their problems. It gave me an air of calm. For better or for worse, I fed off the misery of others. Helping them with their dilemmas gave me strength.
Was I right to draw strength from the weaknesses of my patients? When I wrestled with this question, I tumbled back into that dark place I’d crawled out from. Perhaps it is best to accept the contradictory nature of human existence. The world is not black and white. Joy and sadness, strength and weakness, are not mutually exclusive: accepting that the world is a rainbow makes life a wonderful thing. Suicide as the Solution to All Problems
My biggest sticking point was with society. I idealized society. I saw my city, my community, my province as a place where every citizen could fit in and play their role, from the greatest to the least. My Quebec society was an equitable, just place: in short, I saw life as fair. But the more I delved into the problems of the marginal, the more I saw that our socialist wonderland left many people behind. Real and serious needs were not being addressed. The idea that our society takes its responsibilities towards the marginalized seriously is, sadly, something of a façade.
The year I began my crisis intervention work, the Casino de Montreal opened its doors. It was 1990. The Casino is a glittering jewel on an island in the St. Lawrence River, accessible by bridge, subway and on foot from nearby downtown Montreal. The Casino building is an architectural marvel, a white helix reaching into the sky. At night, it is lit up like a thousand stars, reflecting brilliant light into the shimmering river waters nearby.
It is a working Casino, and a profitable one at that. In its basement there is a morgue. It is a suicide hub. As soon as it opened, Montreal’s crisis intervention community was sw