The prospect of oblivion has become the balm, the all-accepting soothing other, so notably absent in their life. In this quasi-delusional zone, ‘half in love with easeful Death’ (Keats, 1819/2007), death itself becomes the secure base, a ‘heaven-haven’ (Hopkins, 1918/2008) where pain and suffering are finally assuaged. Suicide beckons when all attachments feel to have failed, turning out-of-control helplessness into action, providing a kind of mastery, both horrific and compelling. Acknowledging all this is part of any attachment-informed ‘risk assessment’.
