Healing Circumstances
In this category, participants expressed that their healing
circumstances included their family and friends' caring, the mental
health professionals' treatment, support from members of society,
and religion. These people helped in different ways to reduce
their stress.
1. Caring by family and friends: In this sub-category, most of the
participants who had attempted suicide received care from
their family and friends during the healing process. ‘This meant
a lot to me’ (P13). ‘I never knew so many of my family cared for
me’ (P11). They were also aware that their family were
‘Concerned’ (P4) and ‘forgave’ (P10) them. They realised that
this support helped them to overcome their difficulties. One
participant said:
P13: My daughter helped me a lot. She always listened to me
when all I did was grumble. Once, I was very sad and I couldn’t
sleep. I called her at two o’clock in the morning and talked to her
for over an hour. She told me I can call her at any-time when I’m
in a bad mood.
2. Treatment by mental health professionals: Most of the participants
expressed that the support provided by the mental health
professionals was extremely powerful and valuable because the
doctors and nurses were ‘always there’ (P7) when the patients
needed them. Whilst they perceived that the ‘greatest help they
received was from psychiatrists who prescribed their medications’
(P1), they were also grateful for the ‘care and support they
received from the psychiatric nurses’ (P10), the social workers
who ‘listened’ (P11) to them and the psychologists ‘for their
psychotherapy’ (P12). One participant expressed:
P7: After taking my medication, I felt relaxed and I stopped myself
from going into a blind alley. The medicine can really help me to
control my moods. I know how important it is to take the
medicine when I’m trying to heal from a suicide attempt.