Origami Elephants

I had been providing psychotherapy for a woman with chronic suicidal feelings. During one of our sessions, she disclosed that she was on the verge of killing herself. And so far, I'd been using routine evidence-based methods that seemed to help her move through these crises, but she certainly was not thriving. It was more like she was drowning in waves of emotional pain.

For decades, she had been hampered by the weight of significant childhood trauma. Among many acts of abuse, her parents would lock her in the car with the windows up and begin chain smoking. These fumes from the cigarettes caused burning sensations in my patient's eyes and likely contributed to her facial and lung cancers now many years later.

After safety planning, I asked my patient if anything ever happened to her that felt like a sacred moment. I described these as moments in time that are extraordinary, precious, and may have a spiritual quality to them. You can think of them like a gift, where you are imparted with some kind of wisdom about life or yourself.

She cocked her head to the side and lifted her eyes as if remembering something special. And then her face lit up. She said yes, and she began to tell me about her trip to feed the hungry.

She explained that several years ago she would come home from work at a different time every day, but there would be a commercial playing on TV about feeding the hungry. It felt to her like an unusual calling. She had no money and few resources. But a short while later, some money arrived in the mail, $500 to be exact. She had no idea what it was for, but she decided to use it for this mission to feed the hungry.

So she packed up her car and headed down a back road to the location. She noticed a truck approaching this intersection with a stop sign in its path, but the truck didn't stop. So she slammed on the brakes at the intersection but knew it would be too late. They were going to crash. Except she said the road parted. It expanded and her car went right around the truck which she said would have been impossible because there were ditches on both sides. There was no room to do that. But she survived and so did the trucker. They both came out of their cars astonished. And she went on her way. She said with this feeling that she was on the right path.

And many other moments like this occurred to her during this trip. She said that she figured from these moments that she was meant to be here, and she's here to learn how to be happy and to help others. 

We began integrating these sacred moments into the context of her life. My journal prompt for her was to try to make sense of these moments alongside your childhood trauma. How do they go together?

A week later, she greeted me in the hospital lobby with a big grin on her face. She announced, I don't want to kill myself anymore. And this transformation has endured for over a year, in spite of multiple cancer recurrences. She is now physically active, reconnected with herself, in a loving partnership, and giving to her community.