Hank’s former partner left him six months before we started working with him. He was struggling with constant thoughts of suicide. His former partner was not allowing him to see the children. His plan was to hang himself in front of her garage so that she would find him when she woke up and know how much she had hurt him.
To start with, I asked Hank why had he given his former partner so much control over his life and why did he want to let her win? Once Hank understood what suicide actually meant, he was finally able to explore his options and figured out how to discuss with a lawyer what he wanted which is to legally get shared custody of his children.