"There is a cup of water sitting on a table. It is so full, it is rounded
at the top. One of two drops of water are added to the cup and it spills
over. What caused the water to spill? We want to blame the last one or
two drops, but in an empty cup it would not spill.

It was not the water in the cup prior to the drops being added, because if
left alone, it would not have spilled. It was a combination of all the
drops of water in the cup that came before and the last one or two drops
that caused the water to spill.

In a person's life, the water in the cup is symbolic of all the hurt, pain,
shame, humiliation, and loss not dealt with along the way. The last couple
of drops symbolize the "trigger events", "the last straw", the event or
situation that preceded the final act of taking one's own life. Often we
want to blame the trigger event, but this does not make sense to us.

Like the water, these events all by themselves would not cause someone to
end their life. It is the combination of everything in that person's life
not dealt with and the last one or two things that caused our loved ones to
lose hope.

For us, we must find a way to pour out the water along the way. This may be
through talking it out, writing it out, sometimes yelling it out, whatever
works for you. We must learn to deal with our pain in a way our loved ones
could not.

This analogy does not give us the concrete answer many of us are looking for
but I know it makes sense for me and has been helpful for many survivors.
It allowed me to let go of the search for "why", and to find a different way
of dealing with my pain."



***This explanation came from Iris Bolton, the Executive Director of The Link
Counseling Center in Atlanta, GA,