“I’m a burden. They’ll be better off without me.”
“They’ll get over it.”
“Nobody will care that I’m gone.”
“I’m worthless.”
Do you tell yourself any of these things? Many people who think of suicide do. In fact, a leading expert in suicide research, Thomas Joiner, PhD, writes that seeing yourself as a burden to others is a necessary condition for suicide to occur.
These sorts of statements almost always are lies of the mind. Depression can trick you into believing them, and so can stress, shame, despair, self-hatred, and other feelings that can cause irrational thoughts. Distorted thoughts. Thoughts that simply are not true – like that somebody who loves you will not care if you kill yourself or will easily get over it.
I do not say this to cause guilt or to convince you to stick around purely for the sake of other people. I don’t think suicide is selfish or judge people who die by suicide, even if their death hurts others.
Rather, I say this to point out that what you tell yourself – what suicide tells you when it beckons – may well be false.
Challenging the Lies of the Suicidal Mind
The question is, if you think your death would matter little to others — or even help them — do you pay attention to the other side of possibility? Ask yourself these questions:
- Is it possible that you’re wrong when you think people would be better off if you end your life?
- Could depression, stress, or other conditions that can distort thinking be deceiving you?
- What would you say to somebody you love who wanted to die by suicide and thought others wouldn’t care if they died?
Is Living for Other People Enough?
It might not matter. Even if you recognize that others would be hurt by your suicide, you might still feel that you can’t stay alive just for others’ sake. You might feel that your life isn’t worth living.
If that’s how you feel, I hope for your own sake – not necessarily for others’ – you’ll consider that other ways exist to feel relief from pain, rediscover hope, find meaning and purpose in life, or experience other changes that will help you stay alive — and want to.
For Those Who Think, with Guilt, of Those They’d Leave Behind
Unlike people who feel that nobody cares if they live or die, you might be all too aware of how your suicide would devastate your family and friends. And then you may feel all the worse for considering suicide as an option. But still suicide beckons, whether you want it to or not.
This is the nature of suicidal thoughts – the thoughts cannot be turned off through sheer will. So, please, try not to blame yourself for the suicidal thoughts that come to you. Please try to have compassion for yourself, to recognize that we’re programmed to avoid pain, and your mind is operating from that programming.
At the same time, please keep in mind that you need not believe everything you think.
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© Copyright 2013 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All rights Reserved. Written For: Speaking of Suicide. Photos purchased from Fotolia.com.
This is so generic. You know what my suicidal mind tells me? “Our government is awful. Our president is a pedophile. Everyone is ignoring the epstein files. A literal genocide is happening right now and everyone is on the side of the oppressor. The job economy is bullshit. Everywheres understaffed, yet nobody is hiring. Ive applied for so many jobs yet the very few that actually respond reject me. I dont even know if i want a job. All my previous experiences with jobs are negative. And i dont have a purpose. I dont want to find one. I will never be happy as long as theres so much evil that my country endorses. And the world is overpopulated with the infestation that is humanity. 4 billion was plenty. Even 6 billion, maybe but 8 billion and on the rise is disgusting. Maybe i don’t want to continue living in a world that wants me to live in it. Maybe i don’t want to listen. IT SHOULD BE UP TO ME, NOT YOU.” Thats what i think. Maybe the problem– maybe the reason why suicide rates are so high– is because we’re too focused on taking people’s autonomy in hopes of preventing them from killing themselves, instead of focusing on the real problem which is that this world is controlling our narrative on life and joy. All of this said, it angers me– makes me seethe– to see how little knowledge people have, or how little care people have about suicide. Nobody wants to focus on the root because then they will have to admit that life truly sucks. As far as I’M concerned, I am the only person who knows anything about suicide because ive yet to meet a man who knows what the fuck he’s talking about. In conclusion, ill have you know that there is a special place in the hot molten core of the world for people who spread their ignorant, poorly researched propoganda to people i call my peers, spreading the lie that its all in my head. I wish you the worst.
“Irrelevant,”
Wow, you must be in tremendous pain to feel so much anger, even hatred, toward someone who’s a stranger and is only trying to help people, not to take away people’s autonomy as you say. I also have to wonder if you misread the post. The “lies” it focuses on having nothing to do with external conditions, but with the feelings of worthlessness that people feel toward themselves. You’re right, the world sucks in many big, important ways. That’s true, and that’s not what this post is addressing. If you’re interested, this post addresses the depressing state of the world, and how people cope with it: What Helps You Want to Stay Alive in Times of Despair?
Though I don’t like all that you said, I thank you for sharing.