how do I keep my son alive?

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Question:  Last week my 22 year old son tried to kill himself.  He survived and now he claims he is ecstatic to be alive and he will never try something like that again.  He wants go off his medication (his point is it clearly didn't prevent a suicide attempt) and he really does not want to go to therapy.  He wants to handle it all on his own.  He made a crisis plan with a therapist but I just don't feel like that is enough.  What can I do?  

Answer:  Try to force a 22 year old to do something they don't want to and get ready for a colossal failure.  Instead find out what does work for him and help him get greater access to that kind of support.  

In general people do not make suicide attempts because they want to die, they want to escape from the pain they are in and they cannot concieve of any other way.

If we start with the postulate that overwhelming suffering leads to suicide attempts we have two goals:  suffering management, suffering prevention.  

For most people we lessen the discomfort of their symptoms (depression, anxiety, etc..) through medication and learning coping skills.  We prevent the suffering from re-occurring or decrease it in the long term through exploring it's causes in therapy.  This process does not work for everyone.  


It sounds like for your son the concept of therapy and medication = feeling weak and exposed.  Most young men feel like accepting help makes them a failure in some way.  If we cannot get him to change that feeling we must find out what other kinds of support we can surround him with that will work. 


Many people struggle with weight loss because they assume it will mean denying themselves all the food they love, feeling hungry, and the kind of exercise that they equate with torture.  When they learn that change does not have to equal suffering they can make great strides.

Talk to your son, find out which aspects of counseling he dislikes most and which ones he might be okay with.  If he likes talking to friends but hates talking to strangers then help him make a list of which friends he can talk to about which issues.  A major key to relapse prevention with any issue is having a person you are connected with who you can have 24 hour access to and tell anything.  Even if your son was working with a therapist having a "sponsor" who he could, and would call if he was struggling is key.

The next step is to make sure that go-to person can handle the challenge and will call for help (even 911) if the situation overwhelms them.  

People who will not consider medication need a physical method to produce some of the brain chemicals that will give them a boost.  My first choice would be Yoga, and second would be any martial art.  We want your son to have access to a soothing technique that can use a lot of energy and calm at the same time.  We want something that he can do by himself at 3 AM because when people are alone and do not have access to their support network they are at the greatest risk for suicide attempts.


Jogging is a wonderful thing but if you try to do it in the middle of the night you get arrested.

In short, you should be nervous.  No matter how good your son claims to feel right now he will feel overwhelmed again.  You cannot force him to take supports he does not want so the best thing you can do is find out what supports he will take and use and give him as much of them as you can.  Communicate with him and his support network regularly and look for changes in sleep, energy, mood.  If you think something is wrong ask directly.  You might risk offending him, but that is better than risking losing him.

The good news is if he can learn some coping skills that get him through the roughest times his suffering will always wane.  Every hard times he survives will be a memory to help keep him afloat through the next bout of suffering.  It may never become easy, but it does get easier as long as he finds the support that works for him. 

How do I get promoted

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Question:  I have been working at my company for three years and I have made two lateral moves but I can't seem to get promoted.  All my reviews are excellent but they seem to view me as a technician and not a leader.  I see other people getting promoted and I wonder what I'm doing wrong.  I'm afraid to push too hard because I don't want to get fired, but it has gotten to the point where I dread going in to work every day.

Answer:  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.  Forget everything you have ever learned about good social skills and being polite.  Get noticed and be willing to ruffle some feathers or get used to being passed over.  

Corporations exist to make a profit for their share holders.  They want their employees to be happy because that makes them more productive but they are not going to give you a big raise and a promotion as a reward for good service.  

You have to work smarter not harder.  You can go back to your desk and spend 20 hours a day making your projects and assignments extra perfect but there is a thing called the law of diminishing returns.  The guy you resent who spent five hours on the project and then went golfing with the boss is going to get promoted ahead of you if his five hour project was good enough to get the job done.  

Step one:  determine the exact position you want and why.  If it doesn't exist write a proposal to create it.
Step two: be prepared to show how you having this position can benefit the bottom line.
Step three:  e-mail your boss and make an appointment to discuss this concept, be prepared for her/him to react by stalling and saying they need to check with someone above them.  Just because you have been thinking about this for a long time do not assume she/he has.
Step four:  update your resume and and start contacting your company's competitors with the same proposed position.  DO NOT just fill out an online application and wait.  DO find the name of your boss's equal number at other companies and contact them directly.  Corporations get tens of thousands of online applications and unless someone is looking for yours it is unlikely to be found.

What is the worst that can happen with this plan?  Your boss says no?  Okay, well you are already looking for a position in another company where you will be valued.

Will a boss really fire someone for wanting to improve the bottom line and advance themselves at the same time?  No chance.  If you are going to get fired it will be because your work is sub par or they have a numbers crunch and need to let people go.

Unless you believe you deserve this promotion and are willing to suggest it you have no chance of getting it.  In addition, it must be presented as a win win for you and your company, because if it don't make dollars then it don't make sense.

Patience may be a virtue, and the meek may inherit the earth, but the assertive will get the raise and the promotion much much faster. 

Who would you take a bullet for?

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Question: Everyone tells me that you cannot really love another until you love yourself. Then I ask people if they would take a bullet for their wife or child and they all say yes. Doesn't that mean they love those people more than they love themselves? Isn't caring more about someone else than you care about yourself what love is all about?

Answer: It sounds to me like you are searching for a loop hole so you can find a way to have a healthy relationship without loving yourself. One of my steadiest rules of life is that if you are looking for a loop hole you are probably doing something wrong.

The entire premise that you are starting with is shaky. People don't take bullets for the other person they do it for themselves. If I am a secret service agent I take a bullet for the President because that is the only way to be true to myself and my code of honor and duty. The President, and possibly the nation, benefit from my sacrifice but ultimately I get to preserve my ego integrity and avoid the shame of not taking that bullet.

Most efforts we make for others, gifts we buy, gestures of kindness are done less for the other and more to make us feel good about ourselves, or to avoid the guilt of not doing what we are "supposed" to.

I deal with a number of co-dependent clients who feel that unless they are providing benefit to another person they don't deserve any love or happiness. They feel like they need to earn love through acts.

Martin Luther put forth the notion that love (particularly God's love in his case) was so wonderful that you could never possibly do enough good works to earn it. It would be like trying to save up enough money to buy a sunset.

You cannot earn the love of another by taking a bullet, baking cakes, becoming a sexual supplicant, or making a million bucks a year. The only way you get love is by believing that you are as deserving of it as any other person. Yes you are flawed, but so are the rest of us.

If you end up building a relationship where what you have in common with your partner is that you both love him and put his needs ahead of yours, you will have gotten exactly the relationship you believe you deserve, but it sure won't make you happy.

If your partner is a decent human being he/she will get sick of the lack of balance and leave you. If your partner is a selfish jerk then you might have a lasting relationship, but it will be with a selfish jerk, and it is also very likely that no matter how you re-form your self to please that person he/she will get tired of you anyway.

Stop trying to be a martyr, stop trying to cheat the system and find the loop holes. Do the work it takes to love yourself and then look for a relationship. On the path you are walking I could see why you romanticize the notion of taking a bullet, but frankly that is the easy way out.

she'll never forgive me

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Question: Recently a friend had been messaging me about this and that and she would slip in hints that she had been cutting herself and using some heavy drugs, I think crystal meth. I got really worried about her and I contacted her parents. Since then she has not contacted me but I don't think her parents even did anything about it. I'm sure they asked her and she denied it and now I lost a friend and I'm wondering if I did the right thing.

Answer: You did the right thing. The sad truth is that often doing the right thing, the hard thing, doesn't work out. If that was why you did what you believed was right then you have failed.

The end does not justify the means. This is what we say when we are explaining why it isn't okay to do the wrong thing if it gets the right result. You are now standing on the flip side of that coin.

My lacrosse players often use poor technique to score goals against bad teams. When I get pissed they point to their results. Then they go up against a good team and only the boys who have worked on proper technique score, and sometimes even they don't score.

Just because you do something the right way you might not get what you want, but if you do the right thing all the time, that becomes who you are. That identity is its own reward.

We don't do the right thing because it will lead to the best results, we do the right thing because our identity is the sum of our actions and in order to be the right person we must live the right path.

You may not have lost this friend. She will probably be pissed at you for awhile, but she knows that when push comes to shove she can trust that you will do the right thing. If you want to keep her in your life, let her rage at you, be honest about why you did what you did, and do allow her to have her anger.

I wish I could say I would be surprised if her parents do not follow up on this, but in my experience most parents just want to believe everything is okay so badly that they will swallow any lie their children are willing to give them. They don't know what to do so doing nothing is often the default choice.

If she eventually gets the help she needs she may feel ashamed to come back to you, just keep steadily reminding her (when you do have contact) that you care and let her come at her own pace.

She may never forgive you, but if she died of a drug over dose and you said nothing, you would most certainly never forgive yourself and that is a burden there is no escape from.