I cannot pretend to understand your situation. You are a stranger, first of all, and everybody’s story is unique. So I’ll refrain from the clichés: “It’ll get better.” “This too shall pass.” “You are a good person and deserve to live.” Those statements may well be true, and I hope you will consider them. But if they were enough, nobody would die by suicide.
Instead of giving you superficial reassurance, I am going to ask you some important questions. I invite you to consider them thoughtfully, and to sit with your answers. They may surprise you.
Have You Tried Everything that Might Help Ease Your Suicidal Despair?
You obviously feel tremendous pain, hopelessness, or other problems that are causing you to want to die. Have you tried out everything possible to alleviate those problems?
If you are depressed, have you tried every different type of antidepressant medication out there? (At last count, there were 30). Even if a few types of antidepressants haven’t worked for you, that doesn’t mean that none of them will.
Have you tried therapy? Research indicates that various therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and CAMS (the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality) can help to reduce suicidal danger in people with suicidal thoughts, and to help them feel better, too.
Have you increased your exercise? Exercise can be as effective as antidepressants in relieving depression, and it helps reduce anxiety, too.
How about self-help – have you tried that? Two excellent books for people with suicidal thoughts are Choosing to Live: How to Defeat Suicide Through Cognitive Therapy, and The Suicidal Thoughts Workbook: CBT Skills to Reduce Emotional Pain, Increase Hope, and Prevent Suicide. (Yes, it’s true, you really ought to get professional help for suicidal thoughts. These books are a good complement to therapy, or you can use them on your own.)
If you are experiencing a life situation with devastating consequences – perhaps you are being bullied or facing prison time – can you consider the possibility that the situation may change, or, as in the case of prison, that it may become more bearable in time?
If you are hearing voices telling you to kill yourself – perhaps the voices say that you are a bad person or that you do not deserve to live – can you consider that the voices simply are wrong? Can you talk back to the voices? Have you tried every type of antipsychotic medication there is? (There are at least 18, not including mood stabilizers.) Might the voices come to a stop, or change what they tell you, or become less believable with time?
Similarly, if you are plagued with thoughts of worthlessness, hopelessness or unlovability, can you entertain the possibility that those thoughts are not true? You do not need to believe everything that you think or feel. I have heard the saying before (though I forget where) that many people have a prosecutor residing in their head, and they lack a defense attorney. You can learn to defend yourself against self-condemning thoughts and to feel better about yourself and your life again. (Cognitive behavioral therapy especially helps with these types of problems.)
Whatever you are dealing with, can you consider that you still can craft a purpose for yourself in life in the months and years to come, whatever that purpose may be?
What Would You Say to a Suicidal Person in Your Situation?
Think of everything that is going wrong in your life. Think of all the reasons you have for dying by suicide.
Now imagine that someone you care about very much came to you with the same problems, the same reasons, the same desires to die. What would you tell them?
Would you say to this person you care about, “You’re right, you should kill yourself”? If not, why?
What Are Your Reasons for Living? (Or What Were They?)
Something has kept you alive this long. What has kept you going?
What have you lived for in the past? Is it possible that you will want to live for those same things again in the future, if this crisis passes?
Here are common reasons for staying alive that people provided in a study by Marsha Linehan and colleagues:
- Attitudes toward life, survival, and coping (for example, a belief that things can change for the better)
- Responsibility to family
- Concerns for children
- Fears about suicide (for examples, fears of death, of suffering injuries from the attempt, of feeling tremendous physical pain, of doing violence to oneself)
- Fear of social disapproval
- Moral objections (like thinking suicide is morally wrong, or believing people who die by suicide go to hell)
Other reasons might include pets, dreams of traveling, love of the mountains – you name it. Whatever keeps you here may well be worth staying for.
Do any of the above reasons apply to you? If not, could they in the future?
What Do You Hope for in Life?
The antidote to suicidal thoughts is hope, and conversely, hopelessness is their accomplice.
What do you hope for yourself for the future? What can you do to help you survive long enough for those hopes to be realized?
Are there things you hope for immediately, like a chocolate bar, a good night’s rest, a day off from work? What are the little things that you hope for that might not be getting your attention during this time of crisis?
Have you lost all hope? If so, think back on what gave you hope in the past. When did those things stop fueling your hope? Could they again?
Maybe you are thinking “Things will never get better” or “I have nothing to live for. ” Can you be certain your thoughts are correct? More to the point, even though it is painful to have such thoughts, is it possible you are wrong?
Remember, some conditions – like extreme stress, or depression – can cloud a person’s thinking, making hope invisible. People with these conditions may be unable to remember the good things in their life and unable to tap into the good things that may come. But hope does not really die. It just hides. Even amid a terrible storm in the head, it is still there behind the clouds, just like the sun.
Does It Help You to Think of Suicide’s Effects on Other People?
I would like to ask you to think of people who would suffer from your death. But I know that thinking of other people can be very complicated.
Some people with suicidal thoughts are angry at those they believe have failed them. They may feel, often rightly so, that their suicide will cause guilt in those they left behind, and for a small number of suicidal people, this may be a fate that they welcome. In this context, suicide takes on a vengeful quality, whether that is the primary purpose or a byproduct of suicide.
Other people may feel convinced that they are a burden on their loved ones, and that their suicide would be a way to spare their family and friends. Even more common, perhaps, are the people who are suicidal precisely because they believe that no one who cares.
I also know that when the pain and desperation become excruciating for a person considering suicide, the love and support of others becomes only a small solace. Even parents of young children die by suicide, not because they do not love their children and not because they disregard the pain it will inflict on their children. No, for many people who are suicidal, their pain is so great that they desperately want to escape it. Even though they know their death will bring great pain to those left behind, a more frightening scenario for them is having to continue enduring their own suffering, day after day.
I recognize that sad reality. So the question of who your death will hurt might not be relevant to you. But if it is relevant, please do consider that those who care about you will be devastated.
Remember the saying: “To the world you may be only one person, but to one person you may be the world.”
To which people are you the world?
Whose world might you become in the future, whether or not you have met that person yet?
What people might you help one day, whether professionally or personally?
Who might you love? Who might love you?
These questions are unanswerable at the moment, of course, because you haven’t met some of these people. Remember that, please.
How You’ve Coped with Suffering and Despair in the Past?
Think of another time when you really struggled in life. Perhaps you did not think of suicide, but you felt extremely sad, or angry, or hopeless. How did you get through that? What helped you? Who helped you?
If you have ever experienced this kind of despair and suicidal thinking before, what stopped you from killing yourself then? What did you do, feel or think then that you might be able to repeat now?
Is It At All Possible that Your Suicidal Thoughts Will Go Away?
Can you know for certain that your problems will never improve, or that the pain they bring will never ease, or that you’ll never find meaning and purpose in your experience?
Even though it does not feel like it now, there is hope for change. The horrible situation you are in might get better, or it might become more bearable. The pain you feel may ebb, or you may develop techniques for coping with it. Hope may return. Goodness may come.
Consider that among people who survive a suicide attempt, about 90% do not eventually die by suicide. Even these people who made the decision to die find reasons to live again.
Can you know for certain that you won’t rediscover reasons for living, or reconnect with those that already exist? Maybe not now, but there may well come a time when you look back on your suicidal state of mind and are glad that you did not die.
There is a good saying: Don’t quit five minutes before your miracle.
Similarly, I have a piece of artwork on my wall that says, Any moment can change your life. You just have to be there.
And also, this refrigerator magnet in my kitchen: We are unaware of what sweet miracles may come.
These sentiments apply to you, too. They apply to everyone.
Finally, What If You Survive a Suicide Attempt with Serious Injuries?
This is a tough question to ask, and even tougher to answer. Consider that you might survive your suicide attempt. Would the injuries you inflicted on yourself make your problems even worse?
You could suffer permanent injuries from jumping, trying to hang yourself, or doing other bodily injury to yourself. Consider what happened to Kristin Jane Anderson, who attempted suicide by lying down on railroad tracks when a train approached. She lost both her legs. (See her excellent, inspirational book, Life, In Spite of Me, about rediscovering hope and purpose in life in the years that followed.)
If you shoot yourself, you may still survive. Some people who shoot themselves do permanent damage to their face, experience severe brain damage, or become paralyzed. In another book by an attempt survivor, David Wermuth describes the ordeal of becoming blind from shooting himself in the head.
Some people who survive an overdose damage their kidneys or liver in the process. A transplant is sometimes necessary. Some others suffer permanent brain damage.
I said this is a tough question to ask, because I do not want to challenge you to come up with a foolproof method for killing yourself. Instead, I want you to consider that things don’t always go as planned. Whatever problems you struggle with now could be made even worse with a suicide attempt.
Suicidal Thoughts Are a Symptom
Many people think of suicide from time to time. The philosopher Camus noted, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” The philosopher Nietzsche said, “The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.”
To seriously consider suicide is a sign that something is wrong. Our natural instinct in life is to survive. People endure unimaginable horrors in order to stay alive – as just one example, consider the man who cut his arm off with a pocket knife in order to liberate his body from a boulder, having been trapped beneath it for five days and seven hours.
If your instinct to survive has become weakened, it’s a sign that you need help. Please seek that help, whether from a trusted friend or family member, clergy, physician, therapist, or some other supports you have.
What can you do now, right now, to help yourself or to let someone help you?
Resources for People with Suicidal Thoughts
For a list of resources you can contact immediately, via hotlines, text, or online, click here.
© Copyright 2013 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All Rights Reserved. Updated Dec. 23, 2021. Written for www.speakingofsuicide.com. Photos purchased from Fotolia.com
When I read this article, aloud to myself …All I continue to correct is the word living (as it relates to me)..I immediately correct it within myself & use the word ” existing,..as that is what I feel daily & have…for Years and years ….After 30 med. over 30 yrs Counseling, two rounds of 36 treatment TMS, etc. I am So So weary & merely exist. I also feel shame at myself, within for not being able to make progress, which I now define as waking in the morning & saying “thank you God for another Day of life.” This is my dream, to utter these words to myself & to believe & FEEL if only briefly Feel them….not think, but feel….I have left no stone unturned & have Been a fearless fighter. Finding a Support System, that is authentic & “gets it”, has been a struggle though. I am desperate to embrace the simple things in life…to smile at a butterfly, & to feel its presence, is my dream. To feel, & to find anyone, someone who can be a support person, & May say words like “To feel is real… Just be You,!”!( minus judgement, advice, dismissal, intolerance ,and lack of acceptance) My butterfly thoughts are …..Beautiful thoughts, A dream & not a present nor past reality. Thank you, for your site & words, Stacey.
Christal I have just finished reading your comments and I can’t believe the similarities of my own experience. You have captured my own story without the TMS and very early on I found that I cannot tolerate any of the meds they prescribed as they only heightened the desire to commit suicide. I have been battling depression for over 50 years but only diagnosed since 2010. I, also, am looking for that perfect support system I need to keep me going. I hope and pray you find yours…..perhaps one day I will find mine.
Surviving or merely existing…Thank you for sharing this. I relate 100%
I’m also feeling like I wish I were never born.
I can’t bring myself to get a gun and do it. The genetic will to live is too strong and actually putting a gun to my head is horrifying.
But life has nothing to offer me now. I’m just wasting time. So what do I do? Can’t live, too scared to die.
Scott,
I think you’re experiencing the ambivalence that many people with suicidal thoughts do, and that you summed up so well: “Can’t live, too scared to die.” That fear is valid! You asked what do you do, and that makes me wonder if you’re getting help. Treatments like psychotherapy and medication help a lot of people with suicidal thoughts not only to stay alive, but to feel better. Even just talking with a good listener helps some people to feel understood and to see other alternatives. So, my recommendation is to get professional help if you haven’t already, and/or to use the free resources listed on the Resource page here.
Thanks for sharing, and I hope life has something to offer you again, and soon.
Person on line once told me i should commit suicide! little did she know how many times and failed! still time would be SO GREAT TO BE WITH MY FAMILY and make other people happy
I’ve been thinking of taking my life almost constantly for awhile now. A year and a half ago I was raped, choked, and nearly beat to death. Took me two weeks to report it which led to him getting away with it. I’ve lost everything because of what happened. My job, savings, sense of security and safety, I lost it all. Now I live out of a duffel bag. My fear of people has led to nearly total isolation from the rest of the world. Due to the trauma I endured, so I’ve been told, I now hear voices and am so paranoid and terrified of other people to the point of hiding at my father’s house just so I can feel somewhat safe. Can’t work..too consumed by the trauma and paranoia. I take medications but they are at best a band-aid. See a therapist but do everything possible to avoid/change the subject when the assault is the topic. I spend many days and nights wishing he would have killed me instead of forcing me to deal with everything. I see no future for myself. I cannot see what the tomorrows may bring. All I see is a black empty space when I try to think of better days. I can’t stand what my life has become and know I’m too weak to change it. It’s like I’m lying to myself everyday, pretending like I exist. I already feel as if I don’t exist anymore, sort of like this is all a dream that I’m not allowed to wake up from. Do I feel hope for myself? No, sadly I don’t. Just empty.
I hear you. I feel exactly the same way. Cancer took literally everything from me. Everything I hold dear. Now I’m alone and nobody gives a shit. And that’s how it’s going to be for the next 20 or so years until I die.
Oh well. I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger because I’m too much of a coward. Guess I’ll just hang around like a cobweb in a windowsill
Michelle,
You communicated very powerfully the intense pain you’re experiencing. I hurt for you as I read your words. The trauma you experienced is so painful and unfair, and the aftermath is, too. I used to work at a rape crisis center, and we were taught to respect the client’s autonomy to talk (or not talk) about what happened at their own pace. People who have gone through trauma need to feel in control where they can. At the same time, sometimes people over-control things to the point where they no longer feel alive. Or their efforts at control make the feelings and memories they’re trying to suppress even stronger, sort of like ignoring a stranger at the door who keeps knocking louder and louder and finally kicks the door in. In either case, talking even just a little with your therapist about your trauma – or, at least, your reluctance to talk about your trauma – might be helpful to you.
Also, I wonder if you’ve considered a support group for people who have been raped? For some people, it helps to connect with others who have gone through something similar, though it’s not helpful for everyone. You can find out about support groups and other possible resources by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 (HOPE), or by visiting their website at http://www.rainn.org/. The website also has a way to chat with someone online.
You’re living in a place of intense darkness, and there is light out there, even if you can’t see it right now. I hope you’ll be able to see it again in the future; I hope you experience relief, and hope, and healing soon. Thank you for sharing here.
This is probably the only place I could say this and be allowed to say it. So Thank you, Stacey.
I have what I believe is a way but then I read all articles like this and worry I won’t be successful. Many years ago I was told by the head judge of the Maryland Court that “suicide is acceptable in your case” (I was at a pain clinic and said if I cant get the pain under control I will suicide, the doctor threatened to commit me if I wouldn’t go to psych hospital voluntarily. He then called the Court to find out if they would go through with a commitment and because of the physical pain I was in they told him “No.”)
I am totally alone. I have a friend in Fla and one in Az and a nephew in texas. and that is it. I am mostly housebound because of either the pain or not wanting to go out and trigger the pain, I believe suicide is still acceptable in my case and when this is the situation there should be a medical way to help us so we don’t end up paralyzed, in coma, brain damaged, etc. I want to take the pills I have but I am afraid. I cant afford to be in an even worse situation then I am. Thank you Stacey for providing this safe space for us.
Lee, so sorry for what you have to endure. I find myself in a similar spot, although you couldn’t tell by looking at me that I’ve been in constant, significant pain from Transverse Myelitis and CIS for almost 18 years. I’ve tried everything I know to try, but the pain won’t go away. I consider suicide in my case the rational choice, and I’ll probably be forced to make that choice in the next few years. All the best to you, and every one of us
Hi John, thanks for taking the time to reply. Im sorry you are in a similar situation, there should be a way for us to “exit” when we are in unending pain that is not ‘fixable’
Lee,
Thanks for your comment, and for your thanks. I’m grateful this site is helpful to you in some way. I can see in your words how much pain you’re in, while also feeling afraid of trying to die and ending up in even worse shape. I just learned of a book that might or might not be helpful to you. I haven’t read it myself so I don’t know, but it’s on topic: The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die, by Katie Engelhart. It came out in 2021. If you read it and want to share your impressions here, please do! You could submit a comment or, if you’re interested, email me at speakingofsuicide@gmail.com about possibly writing a guest post. Anyway, thanks again for sharing!
Thanks Stacey. I just ordered the book. (It’s interesting I read the free preview and have to say it may be in the book but I have known of folks who were “snowed” by the docs to hasten their deaths (they were in terrible pain, had cancer and been through H*ll to try and cure it to no avail). Thank goodness for the nurses and docs who do that, who understand why there is a need for it. But then as a number of the folks here tell of their chronic pain situations, there should also be such a way out for us as long as it is “rational” suicide.
Lee,
I’ll be curious to learn your impressions, if you care to share. 🙂 But first, a question: What do you mean by “snowed”? I thought maybe you meant the doctors and nurses tricked or convinced them, but that doesn’t seem consistent with the rest of what you wrote. (It’s Friday, and I’m still working, so my brain is tired.)
cant reply right under your reply. Used to work in a hospital (just an er clerk and forget what is a common expression to me is probably not to the outside medical community ((*_*)) snowed means to give med like morphine and give it the doses more closely together, say every 3 hours or two) so that the patient dies. To my mind it is a mitzvah.
Lee,
That makes much more sense than my understanding of the term “snowed”! I was thinking of it in the context of this dictionary definition: “To snow: US and Canadian slang. to deceive or overwhelm with elaborate often insincere talk.” Thank you for clarifying.
oh dear, I can see why it would make no sense. ((*_*)) (or be done by really terrible people masquerading as healers)
Thanks to both you and Stacey for this conversation and the book recommendation. I’ve tried to have the conversation about “rational” suicide with many folks, largely to no avail. I will be ordering the book. All the best to you, and every one of us
Thank you for this article. It’s one of the most concise and thorough and realist I’ve read. And I’ve read many. I have been feeling suicidal for many months now.. due to a failed marriage. I am a family oriented person, conservative Catholic and the thought of a broken family is too much to bear. We have two beautiful children and it pains me that we are all not together. My husband had a few “flings” and when I found out I was traumatized and ran to an attorney, who took advantage of my emotional state and everything unraveled. I should have addressed the red flags throughout the years that led up to finding the evidence but I was too scared, insecure… I failed to communicate. And I feel like a failure.
Ann,
Those feelings of regret and being a failure are so painful. Are you getting any help? It’s a lot to bear alone. You’re grieving the loss of your marriage and also, it sounds like, caught in a shame spiral. While this loss would be painful no matter what, it doesn’t have to be *this* painful. Please do consider seeing a therapist or checking out the resources listed at http://www.speakingofsuicide.com/resources/#immediatehelp. And thanks for sharing here.