Suicide and Cynicism

A surprising amount of police work is what you might call social work with a stab vest on.

Well, I say surprising...  it surprised me, when I was new, but any police officers or staff reading this will just be thinking, "and?"

Social Services are even more strapped for cash and resources than we are, and they don't operate 24 hours, so we tend to find ourselves very familiar with the vulnerable people, mad people, and suicide risks on our patch.

Small digression: I visited our local Ambulance control room a while back and spent an entertaining half-hour playing the name game - we had all the same regular callers and swapped some good stories about the real characters.

Anyway: we (call-takers especially, despatchers and officers slightly less so) hear threats of suicide so often that they start to wash over us.

There's the frequent callers, who generally don't get beyond a nice chat with someone in the call centre.  All the calltakers know them, and they know the drill.  There's the crooks, who think it will get them out of a spell in custody.  There's the people actually standing on a motorway bridge or tall building, who are generally quite happy to come quietly once an officer arrives.  I rather suspect this last category are people who know they need help but haven't managed to get it through the NHS, so they get themselves sectioned - I actually feel an enormous sympathy for them, being forced into that situation to get the help they need.

And then, just occasionally, there's the one who succeeds.

They're never called in by the victim himself - it's always a manager, concerned because he hasn't made it to work, or a neighbour worried by the lack of movement and buildup of post.  He - and it's always been he, in my experience - has never indicated anything of the like before.  He's kept it all to himself, never shared his dark feelings with anyone.  Often, he's completely unknown to the police or social services.  He's just very efficiently done away with himself.

We get very blaise about suicide threats - especially when (as so often!) they come from hardened crooks or regular nuisance callers.  I hear my colleagues say, "let him do it then" or "why should we stop him if that's what he wants?"

I understand where that frustration comes from.  I know why they say it.  But I never say things like that.

And when they do succeed...

When I have to deploy an officer to a bloated, flyblown corpse, everybody's defences go up, and the tasteless jokes start flying... 

Who mourns them?  Who grieves for these sad, lonely people, with no friends and no family?  Who lifts a glass and sheds a tear?

I do.