Yaiza Perera Madrid
Madrid
Updated Sunday, February 11, 2024-02:33
Suicide prevention All 'Once Lives' reports
Society Many followers, but few friends: one in four young people feels alone
His voice could be heard at the back of the car and approached like a litany: "
An alms, out of charity
." No one looked at that old woman or made any attempt to get up to offer her a coin. She also did not bring that glass she was clinging to to any of the passengers on the Madrid Metro. At every step she gave the feeling that she had lost hope. Nothing around her gave her a sign otherwise. Her presence, her needs, went unnoticed among dozens of people absorbed with their cell phones or her own thoughts.
Rejection, exclusion, loneliness.
.. the lack of social support, in short, considerably increases the burden of suffering in any human being and in cases of especially vulnerable personal or family circumstances, such as going through situations of poverty, violence or suffering from a mental illness, it can be an added condition for someone to think about taking their own life. When real compassion, listening and support is perceived, the risk decreases.
"We experience suicidal ideation mainly because we experience social pain"
Miguel Guerrero, clinical psychologist
"The main suicide prevention measure is social cohesion," Miguel Guerrero , clinical psychologist responsible for the
Cicerón Suicidal Behavior
Prevention and Intensive Intervention Program in Malaga
, quotes sociologist Émile Durkheim
.
Where bonds are stronger there are fewer deaths in these bleak circumstances. In Spain they do not stop increasing year after year (
4,227 in 2022
) and it is consolidated as the first external cause of death in our country. Guerrero proposes to stop losing lives "not focus so much on risk factors" and focus on "protective" ones,
strengthening human contact
. A deep conversation, a hug, a look without judgment can increase the desire to live. "On a therapeutic level it is very important, if we are able to add a reason for life, we are
able to compensate for all the suffering
that the person may have and that is more difficult to drain over time," says Guerrero.
Risk and protection factors
Dropdown
Risk factor's
Mental disorders (Depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder)
Drug or alcohol abuse
Physical health (chronic pain or terminal illness)
Psychological dimensions (hopelessness, perfectionism, personality traits such as aggressiveness, impulsivity, anger, irritability, hostility and anxiety)
Sex (men have higher rates of completed suicides and women have a higher number of suicide attempts)
Age (adolescence and old age)
Marital status (A statistically significant association has been observed between not having a spouse or partner and suicidal behavior)
Employment and economic situation (Job loss and poverty; professions with high level of stress; low educational level)
Lack of social support
Family history of suicide
Previous suicidal behavior
History of physical or sexual abuse
Peer bullying in adolescents
Protective factors (those that reduce the probability of suicide)
Ability to resolve conflicts or problems
Trust yourself
Skill for social and interpersonal relationships
Present cognitive flexibility
Having children, more specifically in women
Family and social support, not only the existence of support but its strength and quality
Social integration
Possess religious beliefs and practices, spirituality or positive values
Adopt cultural and traditional values
Comprehensive, permanent and long-term treatment in patients with mental disorders, physical illness or alcohol abuse.
SUICIDE PREVENTION
Eleven lives.
Protect your life against suicidal ideation: "Seek help before anxiety blocks you, you are not alone"
Editorial: YAIZA PERERA Madrid
Protect your life against suicidal ideation: "Seek help before anxiety blocks you, you are not alone"
Guidelines.
How to help a person who has thought about taking their own life: what are the warning signs? What should we never do?
Editor: * PEDRO MARTÍN BARRAJÓN | ELISA ALFARO FERRERES
How to help a person who has thought about taking their own life: what are the warning signs? What should we never do?
He talks about recovering ties because although current individualism seems to have dissipated them, the need to have them is in our genetics. In the Paleolithic, he remembers, it was impossible for the individual to survive in such harsh conditions, with limited resources, if not within a group, a tribe. "The brain has evolved in a way where
all the psychological, emotional, cognitive mechanisms are designed to connect
with people."
Feeling left out and perceiving yourself as a burden on society and without hope is a risk for life: "We experience suicidal ideation especially because we experience social pain. And this fits very well with all the literature that the main risk groups are people who feel excluded, marginalized, rejected and discriminated against. And this 'social pain' is as intense as the physical pain can be: "On a psychobiological and neurological level it has been shown that they use the same brain pathways."
Links against loneliness
Loneliness is one of the main sources of suffering and takes its toll on life from increasingly early ages. A report from the
ONCE Foundation
and
Ayuda en Acción
warned last Thursday that one in four young people feels alone and without the possibility of establishing meaningful relationships with other people. They spend a lot of time trapped in social networks that do not support them and that interfere with the creation of bonds. The PsiCE study, carried out in educational centers, also showed this week that 6% of adolescents claim to have serious symptoms of depression and 15% of anxiety.
In 2022, 75 young people between 15 and 19 years old took their lives. "From a suicide prevention perspective, the
influence of screens on adolescence is a scourge
, for society in general, for those affected and for professionals" because "it increases the problem by attacking the waterline of life," warns the psychologist Francisco Villar in his book
How screens devour our children,
in which he defends prohibiting the use of smartphones before the age of 16.
This expert emphasizes that for a "healthy" connection you must learn to "manage emotions, create true bonds with friends and family and create real spaces of well-being" in the "real world." Have someone to take you for a walk before surfing the internet.
Juan José Escudero, during a walk through a park in Madrid.SERGIO ENRÍQUEZ-NISTAL
"Compassion, knowing that someone feels sorry for me, not for me, is one of the main protective factors. That someone sits next to me and bears a little piece of my burden," explains educational psychologist Cristina
Yebra
.
Juan José Escudero
finds
it difficult to find someone in his environment who does it. Three years ago he lost his wife, Pilar, to lung cancer and a year and a half later his son Nico to suicide at the age of 19. Since then, he has faced a complicated grief where their names have seemed to be erased by the stigma, for not knowing how to talk about something so devastating, causing him even more pain. He breaks that silence without words. To each family gathering he brings two candles to make presents, with all his light, to his loved ones.
The
taboo
that still surrounds suicide causes intense suffering in their families, increases the feeling of
incomprehension and isolation
. Juan José has been rebuilding for months with the support of a
mutual aid group
in Madrid, the strongest network for the protection of survivors that extends throughout Spain since 'After Suicide' created the first association a decade ago.
Mutual aid groups help you find points of support so you don't sink. There is a lot of listening and support
Juan José Escudero, father of a teenager who died by suicide
Associations and telephone numbers that offer help
Dropdown
-In case of an imminent life-threatening emergency, call the emergency number
112
directly .
-If you have suicidal ideation
024
- Hope Telephone: 717.003.717.
- Suicide Prevention Telephone (Barcelona): 900.92.55.55.
-ANAR Telephone/Chat for Help for Children and Adolescents 900 20 20 10
- Telephone Against Suicide - La Barandilla Association (Madrid): 911.385.385.
--- RedAIPIS-FAeDS Association
-- Papageno 633 169 129 vivos@papageno.es
-The Yellow Girl Association
--P81 Social Association
- APSAV. Association for the prevention of Suicide. Green Hugs. Asturias.
- AFASIB (Familiars i Amics Survivents per suïcidi de Les Illes Balears (Balearic Islands)
-AIDATU. Basque Suicideology Association
- APSAS: Association for the Prevention of Suicide and Assistance to Survivors. (Gerona)
- APSU: Association for the prevention and support of those affected by suicide (Valencian City)
- ASAM: (Burgos).
- KISSARKADA-Hug: Navarra.
- BIZIRAUN: Basque Country
-BIDEGUIN: Basque Country
- After the Suicide: (Barcelona)
- Alaia Foundation (Madrid)
- Metta-Hospice Foundation (Valencia)
- Goizargi: Navarra
- León Survivors Group.
- There is Exit, Suicide and Duel: (Cantabria)
- Ubuntu (Seville)
- Light in the Dark Association (Tenerife)
-Return to Live Association (Tenerife)
"The mutual aid group helps you focus life in a different way, to find points of support so as not to sink. There is a lot of listening and support. We are attentive to each other, to see when someone has been left stranded in that pain," he says. . People who suffer the loss of a loved one often lose their social circle. "Social relationships are almost non-existent. They are a wall, it is very complicated. The first years we feel terrible. They live one reality and we live another," she explains.
In the bar where he talks about his family, 'La Vaquería', in Madrid, Nico is especially present. It was his workplace until shortly before he died and there his father felt close to him. In the flowers on the tree next to the door that someone left after he left, in the gestures of affection from his colleagues when he enters the premises. He receives as much kindness as he offers. Juan José takes care of the bonds that he created in life, especially his closest friends, who have become survivors like him:
"My son is in each one."
Prevent by fighting inequalities
In people who are going through extreme suffering, with very complicated living conditions and without support, thoughts of death may appear.
The Diaconía entity, which
cares for people in situations of social vulnerability, created the
'Zoé Project'
two years ago , which in Greek means 'life', to strengthen social protection factors, fight against silence and raise awareness from a "perspective real" away from
myths and wrong beliefs
. Last December, it reinforced this awareness-raising work with a guide to "inform and help the population know how to act and show that this is "everyone's responsibility, that we all have a fundamental role."
Cristina Yebra coordinates this suicide prevention project. From her words and the emotion with which she pronounces them, an enormous level of commitment and desire to help emerge. Every day for 26 years, this organization has reached out, among other groups, to
women victims of sexual violence and survivors of trafficking
, to whom they try to "give back the life that has been stolen from them", to
homeless people
, who are in " absolute loneliness", and
asylum seekers
who try to facilitate their "integration into society.
To know more
Interview.
"The work of a social worker is as valuable in suicide prevention as that of an on-call doctor"
Editorial: YAIZA PERERA Madrid
"The work of a social worker is as valuable in suicide prevention as that of an on-call doctor"
Diaconía offers
training to professionals (doctors, psychologists, social workers...), who can detect cases of people at risk, they do
awareness
-raising work
in other entities, churches, educational centers and town councils for free to extend the protection network and puts a lot of effort into caring for
children and adolescents
.
They go to schools and institutes to try to alleviate educational inequalities in children at risk of social exclusion and carry out workshops with the rest of the students, with teachers and with families to achieve a comprehensive intervention: "There are many minors with self-harm, emotionally very touched, damaged and, above all, very hopeless because they do not have a life plan. "The fundamental idea of the project is to make them see that
they are important people because of who they are
, that their value is intrinsic and they have a job in society. Perhaps it is the starting point towards a very different path," he says.
Dropping out of school "condemns" boys and girls to greater "suffering," Guerrero warns, because having a lower educational level makes them less likely to have well-paid work and job opportunities. The more job insecurity and unemployment, the greater the risk of poverty and emotional distress. Reducing suicide, experts agree, also involves fighting
educational inequalities
and providing equal opportunities for the future.
"It is everyone's responsibility"
SHUTTERSTOCK
When people's lives are "improved, public access to socio-community services is alleviated, poverty is mitigated, spaces are created where people can forge bonds and interact" suicide cases decrease significantly, says Guerrero, alluding to experiences in other countries such as Denmark, with a state prevention plan that includes all social areas and not exclusively health. Spain currently lacks a strategy at the national level and the preventive task falls to the Autonomous Communities as they have transferred responsibility for Health.
The implementation of this plan throughout Spain is a recurring demand from experts to, among other measures, disseminate
social awareness campaigns
. Raise awareness to avoid deaths, as was done with traffic accidents and which has managed to reduce the number of victims from 6,000 to 1,200 in 20 years. "We have a clear clue, but not those who do not want to talk about suicide because of the stigma, people do not want to think or be aware that anyone around them can commit suicide," Guerrero warns.
The Minister of Health, Mónica García, a doctor by profession, offered in her first appearance in Congress a commitment to offer a prevention strategy with a more social perspective and that studies in depth all the determinants behind hopelessness and suffering, especially among young people.
"Anguish, helplessness and hopelessness"
One of the main risk groups that Diaconía works with are women victims of sexual violence, many of them survivors of trafficking. In these cases, says Cristina Yebra, the "main problem is the pain that comes with talking about it, the stigma, the shame they feel, which in turn causes a feeling of isolation." In the organization they try to get them to recover the feeling of security, that the "bad guys are not going to come for them" and that they feel "free" to be able to talk about their experience. The sexual abuse to which they have been subjected leaves a deep mark on them, triggering
in six out of ten a serious mental illness that can increase the risk of death
.
They also carry in their memory situations of extreme hardship another of the vulnerable groups on which Diakonia focuses its efforts: asylum seekers. Forced to leave their country due to circumstances such as discrimination based on
gender identity, political persecution, catastrophes or wars
, they try to overcome their uprooting and settle in a country with a different culture and language, with great uncertainty and a very high level of "
anguish, helplessness and hopelessness,"
says Cristina Yebra. And in Spain "a lot of racism is still perceived." This entity often finds it difficult to rent an apartment for refugees or people who live on the streets. Finding work for them is not "a task either." easy".
ELEVEN LIVES
Society.
What the data does not say about suicide: pain, loneliness and a door to hope
Editor: SANTIAGO SAIZ Madrid
What the data does not say about suicide: pain, loneliness and a door to hope
Suicide in the elderly.
"The family breaks down, loneliness spreads and they are more vulnerable"
Editor: REBECA YANKE Madrid
Editorial: PHOTOGRAPHS: JOSÉ AYMÁ
"The family breaks down, loneliness spreads and they are more vulnerable"
"Social pain" is exclusion and
28,500 homeless people
deal with it day after day on the streets of Spain , a "very high" percentage of them with chronic illnesses and psychiatric disorders aggravated by enormous life suffering. Cristina Yebra has had to accompany some of them shopping on several occasions because they are kicked out of supermarkets. "What hope do these people have? It's hard to live day after day when you live like that," she laments. "There is a very important social variable that is
the lack of access to health, social, and community resources in a clear and direct, public, quality way
," underlines Miguel Guerrero.
A woman looks at the closed window of a public employment office.BERNARDO DÍAZ
Unemployment
and job insecurity
are two of the socioeconomic factors that most influence suicide. Difficulty in accessing housing
,
substandard housing or difficulties in maintaining it can also have a serious impact on people's physical and mental health, the Pro-Housing Association warned in an extensive 2019 report. Three out of ten 'homeless' people According to another study by this entity from 2018, they had tried to take their own life and four out of ten thought about it throughout the year.
Increase social housing above 10% (in Spain it is 2.5%); Effectively regulating rental prices and investing in social spending, mainly in pensions and unemployment benefits, are some of the researchers' proposals to mitigate the impact on mental health.
"An increase in the minimum vital income prevents suicide
. And that has nothing to do with health, nor with psychologists. It has to do with solidarity," Miguel Guerrero emphasizes on the need to promote effective public protection policies.
It is also not easy for them to endure the onslaught of discrimination against the
migrant population
and "the suicide rate suffers to a greater extent," Guerrero warns. "They are people who do not have the same opportunities, who cannot carry out the same activities, who do not feel they belong to a group, and that generates deep pain that later translates into psychological pain. But the origin is social and this is very important. If the person complains of loneliness, what we must offer are communities that are much more supportive, more cohesive and more cooperative."
What is missing is the involvement in the lives of the people around us.
Cristina Yebra, coordinator of Diaconía's 'Zoé Project'.
La violencia, en todas sus dolorosas variables (bullying, ciberbullying, acoso laboral, física o sexual), genera una gran vulnerabilidad y un aumento exponencial del riesgo de que una persona trate de quitarse la vida. Detectarla y actuar frente a ella es una responsabilidad social que requiere de concienciación e implicación. Si se lograra eliminar el maltrato y abuso se podría llegar a reducir un 67% los intentos de suicidios, asegura Guerrero.
Mirar hacia otro lado, decir 'no es mi problema, no va conmigo', es una gran fuente de 'dolor social'. Cristina Yedra se emociona mientras recuerda cómo hace apenas unos días supo del caso de una adolescente que pensó en quitarse la vida y se lo confesó a una compañera de clase. Ella, muy preocupada, dio la voz de alarma a adultos de confianza y la acompañó a buscar la ayuda que necesitaba.
"Lo primero que te viene a la cabeza sería no es tu problema, quítate de en medio. Y es lo que muchas veces hacemos. Pero, sin embargo, sí es su problema. Claro que lo es". Es el de todos. "Lo que falta es la implicación en la vida de las personas que tenemos alrededor y esa implicación nos va a permitir ver señales de alarma. Tener conversaciones realmente trascendentales, escuchar no sólo con los oídos, sino también con los ojos es lo que lo que puede cambiar y realmente cambiaría todo", asegura.
Guerrero es psicólogo pero confiesa su preocupación ante el hecho de que las personas tengan que acudir a un profesional para sentir apoyo y escucha porque carecen de un hombro en el que llorar: "Los espacios para poder compartir, para generar vínculos, son cada vez menores. Por lo tanto, la probabilidad de tener vínculos sanos cada vez es más baja y eso genera dolor social. Con el tiempo todos estamos cayendo en esa sensación de soledad, de estar cogidos con pinza. Tengo mis dos o tres puntos de anclaje, pero sé que si me falla eso no tengo una red más amplia".
Yebra subraya la importancia de crear lazos fuertes y de reforzar la educación emocional para ser capaces de mirar hacia nuestro interior: "Evitamos confrontarnos a la vida, a la realidad, al día a día. Evitamos el dolor, pero el dolor es parte de la vida y la muerte, también". "Vamos a protegernos entre nosotros", reclama Guerrero proponiendo formas de mitigar el 'dolor social' al alcance de cualquiera, como el voluntariado. Algo tan sencillo, tan humano, como mirar a los ojos a alguien hace que se sienta reconocido y la "conexión que se establece es totalmente diferente". Aunque sea un desconocido. "Y en una persona que está en crisis suicida -explica Miguel Guerrero- ese detalle puede ser una variable que discrimina entre morir o no morir".
This report is part of the 'Once Lives' project promoted by EL MUNDO for suicide prevention and which includes Santiago Saiz, Rebeca Yanke, Rafael Álvarez and Yaiza Perera.