World Suicide Prevention Day: Ways Out of Life Crisis

Every year around 9,000 people in Germany die as a result of suicide. The topic is often taboo. World Suicide Prevention Day aims to change that. A project shows ways out.

In 2016, Mario Dieringer had the idea of ​​how he wanted to radically change his life. He sold all of his personal belongings, closed his apartment, donated most of his clothes to the homeless shelter. The 54-year-old wanted to focus on himself. He founded the “Trees of Memory” project, wandered through Germany and has planted 35 trees for the bereaved of suicide victims to date. This new beginning and the idea of ​​helping others in a situation that he knows well himself gave Dieringer a new meaning in life.

Ten years ago, however, his world looked very different. In 2011, Dieringer collapsed completely surprisingly for himself. The diagnosis: severe depression. “I cried day and night and had the most serious suicidal thoughts that I had never had before,” he explains. “It scared me so much that I was admitted to the closed psychiatry for four weeks”.

“Life saving” measures

From today’s perspective, he describes this measure as “life-saving”. Four months of therapeutic treatment followed. However, three years later, in December 2014, the journalist attempted to commit suicide. “I got a stupid text message. It wasn’t anything that would warrant a suicide attempt. But my brain just stopped,” he explains.

His partner José found him, Dieringer had to be reanimated – and survived. But when he had just struggled his way back to life, things got worse. His partner José also suffered from depression. He wasn’t ready for therapy and they both fell apart in an argument. At Easter 2016, José committed suicide.

“After that I felt really dirty. I had the feeling that I was to blame,” says Dieringer today about his feelings after his partner’s suicide. Only with the help of friends, with whom he was permanently together for months from then, was he able to overcome his own thoughts of suicide again.

Taboo subject suicide

Few people speak as openly about their own experiences with suicidality as Dieringer. For many, it is still a taboo subject that is either kept secret or even given a stigmata. On the World Day of Suicide Prevention, which has always been held on September 10th since 2003, the aim is to raise awareness of this topic. Because even if the suicide rate in Germany has fallen in recent decades, as Reinhard Lindner, head of the National Suicide Prevention Program for Germany, analyzes, 9041 people took their own lives in this country in 2019 alone. That is more deaths than from traffic accidents, acts of violence and illegal drugs combined. Well over 100,000 people per year suffer the loss of a loved one through suicide.

“50 percent of people who kill themselves suffer from depression,” explains the suicidologist at the University of Kassel, who has been researching this topic for more than 30 years. “But that doesn’t explain everything,” knows Lindner, who is himself a psychotherapist. “Separations, hurts and the consequences of serious illnesses can trigger thoughts of suicide if these events bring back unresolved injuries from life.” His advice: “Talking about it helps.” 90 percent of the suicide victims suffered from a mental illness. According to study results, psychotherapy in particular is “a good tool for coping with suicidality,” explains Lindner.

For Dieringer there was also another way out of his greatest life crisis: his “Trees of Memory” project. Most of the year he now walks across Germany on foot to talk to people who have experienced something similar to his.

“Something liberating, optimistic and redeeming”

Dietmar Wacker from Frankfurt am Main lost his 24-year-old son Constantin to suicide six years ago. He too had to struggle with suicidal thoughts afterwards and was treated in a clinic. When he found out about Dieringer through a television program, he knew: He would like to have a tree like this for his son too. He is “grateful” that it worked last October and that Dieringer planted a tree of remembrance for Constantin in Frankfurt’s Grüneburgpark, where Constantin always went jogging. “There was something liberating, optimistic and redeeming about it,” Wacker describes it. “The pain has the possibility of finding a way into something that grows again.” The tree planting and the conversations with Dieringer gave him and his family a lot of strength, says Wacker.

Dieringer himself describes his “Trees of Memory” project as his “engine” and as “that which allows me to heal a little more every day.” He provides information on how suicidality can arise, provides support in coping with grief and also wants to try to help those affected by suicidal thoughts by talking to them. In his opinion, psychotherapy is crucial for them in addition to medical help. “The drama is that there are far too few therapists and far too few places,” criticizes Dieringer.

The Lindner of the National Suicide Prevention Program, which, on the occasion of the 18th World Suicide Prevention Day, appeals to politicians to expand the range of therapeutic advice and support in Germany across the board and with long-term cost assumption, has a similar view.

If you are suicidal yourself, please seek help immediately. At the anonymous telephone counseling you will find contact persons around the clock. Telephone numbers of the telephone counseling: 0800/111 0 111 and 0800/111 0 222 www.telefonseelsorge.de