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
The idea that “it will get better” or “things will change” might help some. But me? No. It will not get better or change. I was born autistic and I will die autistic. Nothing I have tried in almost half a century has changed the fact that no one wants me, that I will never understand people and people will never want to try to understand me. I will always have CPTSD & CEN and it will forever color my view of the world. And because I was born in this country, I will never be able to afford the therapy and assistance I so desperately need. I do my best to stick around, but there’s less and less connecting me to life as the years march on. I wish it were different, but that is the lotto that I guess some god decided to give me. That god decided to withhold the reason, so there’s nothing helpful to go on.
There are ways to get counseling/therapy at low cost to sometimes no cost. If you havent you can call your county and they can get you in touch with someone or google it. I hope you do look for some that you can can get at a cost you can afford (which includes no cost)
“The literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that prevents you from killing yourself.” —Albert Camus
great quote but for me what is preventing me is fear that I will fail and have outcome that makes me further disabled
Lee,
That fear stops a lot of people. That, and a fear of going to hell.
You might appreciate this poem by Dorothy Parker. It’s funny, but it’s also true:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
(Well, it’s not entirely true, because in the U.S. guns are lawful, which is why we have such a large number of gun deaths every year. If she were around to rewrite the poem today, she’d have to come up with a witty way to work in that even people who shoot themselves sometimes survive, usually with permanent injuries, sadly.)
I don’t want to write it all out, but I will say it in short. All of my close friends recently told me, all at once, that I was a bad person and that they would never forgive me. They then all blocked me. This is following a few years back, being told by my lifetime best friend that they couldn’t stand me being so absorbed by my own problems anymore and being blocked by them as well. I have tried and tried and tried to be someone who was normal and could be cared about my entire life. These people left in anger, and cited behaviors tied to something in me I’ve tried my whole life to cut off. I thought I’d done it this time. You talk of hope, but how do you have hope if the problem is not the world- and is you? You can consider it might not be you all you want, but there remains the possibility that the reality they cited (you just being shitty- in ways you’ve failed to fix despite your best efforts) is true. There is no solution if something about you that cannot be fixed is pushing people away and causing them to hurt you. I’m the only one who knows it cannot be fixed and I’m sick of being told it can. I keep giving it everything but people keep leaving and telling me it’s because of me. WHEN is it acceptable to give up? When, after trying and trying and trying for years, do you recognize that you might just be an inherently toxic person? How do you keep going if you want to be good but seem to be incapable of it despite constant desperate effort to be good? You can only hope for so long. It’s not fair I’m so broken. It’s not fair it’s my fault. I always, always crave being normal and good. But it eludes me. Only I can know for certain I’ve given it my all. But I have. And it seems, that if I’ve tried my best and have done so for years- then there’s only two reasons it panned out this way.
1. I cannot change, and hurt them in ways I cannot understand and never intended. That they were right to leave.
2. Or that the things they said were in bad faith and untrue, and that I deserved better treatment.
2 would make me feel better. Given how much I trusted them, I cannot remove 1. I would rather die a victim than go on as a perpetrator of mean interpersonal behavior. I can’t do this. Do I sign off as if one was true, or as if two? Do I voice victimhood of the hurtful things they said, or take accountability for their anger and who they see me as- accepting that role and acting accordingly (that I am bad and cannot fix it, and so must depart.)
I’m so angry at all of them and myself. I don’t know why they did this. I thought we were okay. There’s no avenues left to explore. I don’t want to be the kind of person who people hate, who hears criticism and rightful anger and blows it off. I just wish I had known how to be a good enough person for them. I just wish none of them hated me. I wish nobody would see me as an out of touch spiteful person who blames everyone else. And I wish I didn’t have to die to prove otherwise. I can’t try to change any longer. I don’t want this rotten soul.
How do you go on if the only way to receive love is to be someone you can’t be? What’s the point? Why am I so unforgivable?
I am so sorry.
Are you able to ask one or some, if you’re comfortable doing so, exactly what their issues are with you, not as a time to argue about it or get upset (hard to do but it is possible)?
Another thought I had was looking for a therapy group where you can get feedback from the therapist(s) and the others in the group. I was in some years back and found to be of help.
I hope you can find a way to feel better about yourself
Lately I’ve been feeling the best I’ve felt in years. Nothing much has changed besides realizing how close I’ve come to losing my spouse and high school sweetheart.
While waiting in my car at a stop sign a homeless or barely housed man pushing his bicycle up the icy hill crossed in front of me. I’d guess his age between 60 and 100 street years old. He had a large and awkward plastic bag filled with beverage containers he’d spent all day collecting to return for the deposit. I guessed about eight or ten dollars worth. It was cold, like kill you cold, with snow and a windchill that equated to minus 25C. After admitting to myself, deep admiration for this fellow I could only wonder why he had a stronger urge to live than I did.
He’d obviously had far more difficult challenges in life than I could ever imagine. And as he gets older riding a bike and collecting bottles will only become more difficult. Until his body gives out completely. Comparatively my life has been one of ease. Maybe it’s the nature of our challenges. His are ones of meeting immediate physical needs. Exclusive of any addictions he might have. Whereas mine have been more temporal but much less easily mastered. Usually involving satisfying the emotional needs of others. A target much more difficult to acquire.
I am feeling so very desperate. As others have said, the fear that I won’t succeed keeps me from taking action. I am totally alone in the world, and in chronic pain. No therapist will see me in person because I can’t mask due to my facial pain disorder. I don’t have a web camera or other way to do visual telehealth. I have been offered therapy by phone but I want to see the person in person, They can size me up and I them, but no one will do this.
The one relative who talks to me will take a few hours to visit with me when he comes home for the holidays so twice a year, he also comes in the summer when he has time off (and some years 3 times/yr) so that is my holiday. The others abandoned me years ago and despite 14 brain surgeries against my facial pain disorder still tell people I am a lazy malinger hypochondriac,.
As an older person, my financial situation is not terrible but a plumbing issue is going to cost me about 25,000 once it is finished and then financially when something happens to me, I will have to go to the state, which could mean a state facility. The present and future is bleak (and that’s optimistic). Some folks go to Belgium, etc where physician-assisted suicide is permitted but the cost is prohibitive and I don’t want to leave America. Da*ned if you do da*ned if you don’t Thank you Stacey for this space to say what I can’t say elsewhere (and have no one to whom I can say it)
No one sees what I want to do
I may be misinterpreting what you’re saying, (it is a wonderful sentence) My understanding is no one can see the idea of suicide in your mind and the plan(s) you have been considering. That is one of the things with thinking of acting. You aren’t “permitted” to talk about suicide. people don’t want to hear it and there is fear if you have a therapist that they may try to take away your freedom. (My understanding is that is very very rare and only if the threat seems imminent) I am sorry you are in such pain.
I read this and it reasonates. Feeling so incredibly hopeless yet I can’t believe no one else can see my desperation.