I was talking with a 16 year old male the other day and the question of suicide came up. He stated that he had in the past felt suicidal but he could never do it and he was more likely to get someone else to kill him.
This is an interesting phenomena that one comes across from time to time. Some just can never imagine setting out to take their own life. Making a plan, then carrying that plan out is just not in their behavioural repertoire, they can’t imagine them selves doing such a thing.
But the problem remains, the person has a Don’t exist injunction in their script or personality which means they will at times feel suicidal. They will have suicide as a acceptable solution to a problem at times in their life. But it is something they cannot imagine doing to self. But as this young person said there are other ways to get those urges expressed than by actually taking ones own life.
One can get others to kill them, as he stated. Of course there are many, many ways too do that. Indeed Eric Berne would say that one simply plays a third degree game of Uproar. One gets into a dispute of some kind where the other person ends up murdering you. Such as in the criminal world.
If one enters a war zone voluntarily. This is not just military personnel but journalists, contract workers or government officials as well. And then we have the very high profile situations that attract a large amount of attention.
Again to highlight the situation, the person has a Don’t exist injunction and hence has urges to die but will never do their own suicide. How then can that self destructive drive be satisfied. It’s not going to go away because as we know, for most, once the life script is established in the first 6 years of life it remains there. And our lives are driven by the injunctions we have until the day we die.
So one is left with two equations
Homicide – suicide = secret killing
Homicide + suicide = open killing
One way to satisfy one’s suicidal urges is to kill another person first, but you have to kill them in a way where others can see. The more who see the ‘better’ as there is more chance then that you will be killed back.
Thus I end up at my premise that some of these very high profile killings are to some extent, and maybe to a high degree, primarily suicide attempts.
The Orlando night club shooting
Paris terror attacks in 2015
Nice attack on Bastille day
These were not random, spontaneous events but were planned homicides. This means the individual made a series of decisions over a period time, possibly a long period of time. That as we know is how the life script works. The person makes a series of decisions, often unconsciously, over a period of time and eventually ends up with their life script being played out. We all do this and the people involved in these very highly publicised homicides are no different from you and I, in the sense of them living out their life scripts. These people put themselves in a position where it was highly likely they would end up killed either by their own hand or by someone else’s hand. One can easily conclude these are an act of suicide where the person can’t take their own life but needs someone else to kill them.
I am researching Ruth Ellis, last woman hanged in England. Everything you say is correct. Her childhood of physical and sexual abuse followed with physically and mentally abusive adult relationships, culminating in her public shooting of her lover David Blakely. She had no positive maternal influence and displayed a lack of responsibility and sound judgement throughout her short, traumatic life. She was predominantly in Child ego state … she did not know how to be Adult. The Injunction, Don’t Exist is a definite. I am writing an essay responding to hamartic script outcomes, using Ruth as a case study. I am really glad I found this. Many thanks indeed.
You are welcome Clare