SHARES
Leng Leng stepped out of her apartment in her best outfit, and crossed the street to the tallest apartment in the estate. It was still and dark in the early morning. She wanted to end her life, everything was so hopeless, there was no light in the tunnel.
Then she decided to do it later after work, after her little girl has gone to bed.
Leng Leng’s first thoughts of suicide was after her 15th birthday. She became anxious and depressed when her parents were going through a bitter divorce and her school grades went downhill. At 19, after a broken relationship, she tried to take her own life for the first time. During the next 10 years, she attempted suicide a few times.
We’ve heard stories like this for much too long and much too often.
Steady Rise in suicides
As the years carry on the world sees a steady rise in suicidal rates. It seems that no one person has been left untouched by suicide. Although, what makes this growing issue even more troubling is – the numbers make no sense. Suicide does not discriminate – rich, poor, brown, black or white and there is no demographic logic that explains how suicide chooses its victims.
Since the 1950s, public health officials have tried various methods such as hotlines, individual therapy, group therapy, shock therapy and forced hospitalisations. Besides that, healthcare officials have even coerced patients into signing contracts swearing that they would not kill themselves. In addition they piled on psychiatric medications with ever-more invasive side effects, only to watch the number of suicides continue to climb.
It seems like we’ve exhausted all measures , or so we think.
Making a connection helps keep people sane
It was December 1944 in Bastogne, Belgium, where a company of soldiers were stuck in a farmhouse, surrounded on all sides by German forces. In the still of the night, First Lieutenant Jerome Motto prayed for Allied planes to save him and his fellow soldiers.
True to form and often enough a C-47s would turn up and drop precious cargo from the sky. Cargo that would keep the men alive – food, medicine, clothes and letters. The men would rush out quickly to retrieve the airdrops, even dodging enemy fire.
Motto had grown up in Santa Barbara, California – holding dreams of becoming a concert pianist. When the war broke out, he enlisted to contribute however he could. Expecting clerical duty, his superiors surprised Motto when he became responsible for the safety of 39 men in a regiment.
The weight of his responsibility coupled with the sight of desolate streets made Motto see the ravages of war. It ate him up, slowly. He wrote to his family but that rarely helped. But, his greatest solace came in the form of an old acquaintance, Marilyn Ryan. The duo met while he was on training. They went out a couple of times and while nothing romantic transpired, she wrote him.
This aren’t the love letters you’re probably imagining between a soldier and a woman he met one summer. She wrote of regular things – how the weather was, a new favourite tune and even the common “how are you Joe ?“.
It didn’t matter whether he replied or not, she’d still send him letters on letters.
A Solution for Suicide Prevention
Unknowingly her influence would shape the rest of Motto’s life. After the war, he studied psychology at Berkeley, completed medical school at UC San Francisco and then took a residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore before returning to the Bay Area. He had an interest in suicidal patients, men and women who resembled the soldiers he once were with.
All around him, he saw how circumstances made suicidal patients feel alone. In 1965, he chanced upon a collection of papers by a German psychoanalyst named Hellmuth Kaiser. Kaiser argued that a sense of connection, even on a subconscious level could help the most disturbed patients. This got Motto thinking about Marilyn Ryan and how her letters helped him through the war. Her sincerity dispensed as steadily as an intravenous drip.
Research – Long‐Term Group Therapy
As a result, Motto devised a research project with a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. He would track patients who had been discharged from one of San Francisco’s nine psychiatric facilities following a suicide attempt or an extreme bout of suicidal thinking. And he would focus on the ones who refused further psychiatric treatment and therefore had no relationship with a doctor.
Patients would be randomly divided into two groups. Both would be subjected to a rigorous interview about their lives, but the control group would get no further communication after that. The other one—the “contact group”—would receive a series of letters.
After years of study, Motto had enough data to demonstrate that the suicide rate was almost two times higher in the control group compared to the contact group. Another important finding, was that people who attempted suicide before and wanted nothing to do with the mental health system, could still be reached through another connection.
Showing you care and being connected prevent suicides
As ridiculous as it may sound, the idea of writing letters to save a life worked!
In the late 1970’s, many years later, patients began writing back. Motto recalled receiving letters that thanked him and his team for remembering them, while one replied, “You will never know what your little notes mean to me.” Even when the subject matter was dark times.
This approach constructed by Motto reveals the nature of our being – that connection is all we long for. Consequently, it may be the best hope for some of society’s most despondent individuals. The Motto approach reveals the healing power of connection. This could be how we heal a broken population.
While it may be difficult for healthcare professionals to send text messages of such, fearing impending lawsuits and alleged affair accusations, we on the other hand know of our friends and of our family and of their struggles. We can be where healing begins.
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by Yashwini Ravindranath
Born & raised in Malaysia, Yashwini earned her M.D. studying in Moscow's Russian National Research Medical University. With an affiliation towards research, all things coffee and the startup ecosystem, she now contributes articles to GetDocSays View all articles by Yashwini Ravindranath.
