| Abstract [eng] |
The experience of pre-suicidal suffering is a little-studied stage in the process of suicide. However, it is an important one, as it is during this stage that the preconditions for suicidality emerge. This study aims to explore the phenomenon of pre-suicidal suffering based on the experiences of people who have attempted suicide. A qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (by Smith, Flowers, and Larkin, 2022) was chosen as the methodological framework for the study. The sample consisted of 12 participants (4 men, 1 person with a non-binary gender identity, and 7 women) who had attempted suicide no more than a year prior to the study and were receiving treatment at the Vilnius City Mental Health Centre. Their ages ranged from 18 to 63 years (M = 29.83; SD = 14.6), and all participants were residents of Lithuania at the time of the study. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews and analysed using the guidelines of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The study identified 18 group experiential themes illustrating the experience of presuicidal suffering and the emergence of suicidality. According to the results, the experience of presuicidal suffering involves the recurrence of traumatic events and depends on how these traumatic experiences evolve over time. If a person begins to develop rigid mechanisms to suppress these experiences, external events may repeatedly trigger traumatic experiences and cause suffering. A main triggering event may collapse the suppressed mechanism, leaving the person without hope of adapting to the traumatic experiences in the face of unbearable psychological pain. If suffering cannot be alleviated by other means, suicidal thoughts or images may begin to arise, which, in an affective state, may become increasingly difficult to resist. In summary, the findings of this study suggest that emerging suicidality is one possible outcome of prolonged suffering over many years. Furthermore, emerging suicidality may signal a crisis in interpersonal relationships, that is, an experienced lack of relatedness and an individual's attempt to adapt to the traumatic experiences that caused this lacking. We believe that exploring the primary triggering event together with the person may help better understand the individual experience of presuicidal suffering. |
