Many people feel ashamed of their suicidal thoughts:
“Thinking of suicide means I’m weak,” clients have told me.
“I should be able to cope.”
“I’m a bad person for wanting to kill myself.”
Shame especially can follow a suicide attempt. One small study found that most of the people interviewed felt shame related to their attempt. Some felt ashamed for not living up to others’ expectations. Others felt shame about having survived.
Just as suicidal thoughts can lead to shame, shame can lead to suicidal thoughts. It is a merciless cycle of pain: one begets the other.
An Alternative to Shame about Suicidality
Lost in all the self-condemnation is the understanding that suicidal thoughts are a symptom. If you think of killing yourself, that could be a symptom of a mental illness such as depression or bipolar disorder. But you also don’t need to have a mental illness to have suicidal thoughts. Instead (or in addition), suicidal thoughts can serve as a symptom of extreme stress, the aftermath of trauma, overwhelming painful emotions, deprivation such as poverty and homelessness, a sense of despair and hopelessness, or some other situation that the person experiences as unbearable.
Suicidal thoughts are not who you are. They do not define you. Instead, they happen to you. The same is true of conditions and situations that can lead to suicidality: depression, trauma, and other stress. These conditions do not touch your truest, deepest self, what some may refer to as your soul or your essence.
Close Cousins: Shame and Stigma in Suicidality
It’s hard to talk about shame about suicidality without also talking about stigma. Shame comes from inside the person. It is an emotion, an internal feeling of disgrace. Stigma, on the other hand, comes from outside the person. It is a mark of disgrace. Stigma comes from the messages that society sends out, messages that there is something fundamentally bad about people if they have certain conditions or qualities.
There is a tremendous amount of stigma toward people who think about, attempt or die by suicide. Many movies, press accounts, even random comments on the Internet portray suicidal individuals as cowardly, weak, selfish, defective – and so on. This harmful stigma ignores that there are biological and genetic components to suicide and suicidal thoughts. It also ignores compassion and the fact that humans are wired to avoid pain, so it makes sense that when pain is seen as unbearable and unending, suicidal thoughts can emerge.
Most importantly, stigma feeds into shame. Stigma reinforces for the suicidal person the idea that something is bad about them. And stigma causes many people not to seek help. Stigma isn’t the only reason why people with suicidal thoughts don’t see a therapist or a professional, but for many people, it’s a big reason.
What to Do about Shame and Suicidality?
If you have suicidal thoughts, rather than viewing suicidal thoughts as a character flaw, it is more helpful to look at their underlying meaning. What are your suicidal thoughts telling you that you need?
If you are thinking of dying, it could mean that you need to make a major change in your life. Maybe you need to leave a toxic relationship, or quit a job, or build new ways to cope, or do any number of things that might allow you to experience less pain without killing yourself. Your suicidal thoughts likewise could be a signal that you need therapy or a change in medication or therapy or more connection with others.
The shame itself is telling you something, too. It is telling you that you may have a wound, an injury deep inside of you that needs healing. You may even identify this wound as your self, you true self, not as a piece of your past.
Psychotherapy can help reduce suicidal thoughts. So can other things. The practice of mindfulness meditation helps people to observe that their thoughts and feelings do not constitute their essence. Building compassion toward oneself can also help a person separate their selfhood from their problems or symptoms.
Cognitive behavior therapy can help you to challenge your self-blaming and self-condemning thoughts. You can also come up with realistic coping statements to repeat back to yourself as a way to practice changing your thinking.
Finally, reading about shame and its antidotes is a powerful tonic for many people. In particular, I recommend the works of Brené Brown. A good place to start is her Ted Talks: Listening to Shame, and The Power of Vulnerability.
Whatever path you take, I hope it leads you out of the shame spiral and into a place of hope, healing, and acceptance of yourself and your needs. You’re already hurting so badly that you think of ending your life. The last thing you need is to feel shame on top of that.
© 2013 Stacey Freedenthal, All Rights Reserved, Written for www.speakingofsuicide.com. Photo purchased from Fotolia.com
My mom is so catholic, she just does not get it. In her own words, she never in her entire life had a suicidal thought, god is always there for her. I think i have to write some kind of explanation for her, about her god in its infinitive wisdom will forgive me after my suicide. I hope that “helps” her. Their is no way im gonna turn 35. I’m 30 i can’t get a job cause i have thousands of self inflicted scars, i self harm since 10, I’m 31 now. I look suicidal i have the whole stigmas on my skin. I’m ashamed, i did it to myself, i know. I have never learn to deal with my emotions. My last ones were a week ago. Nothing is going to change for me. It just could get worst, i could get pregnant and give a child a miserable life…no way. My shame, my stigma and my pain will die with me, there is no other way.
Maria, are you getting help? There are many options for people with self-inflicted scars, everything from wearing long sleeves to finding a compassionate, nonjudgmental employer (or at least one with the good sense not to ask questions that could lead to them discriminating unfairly against someone) to working as a peer support worker for others who self-harm, and many others, too.
It’s hard when the people close to you don’t get it. Many people do get it, and I hope you’ll connect with some of these understanding souls. One good resource is chronicsuicidesupport.com. They have a chat room with others who understand the experience of chronic suicidality or self-harm. Also, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 and the Crisis Text Line at 741741 are good options for some people.
Please take care!
Christians teach that God is the cure for depression, that upon acceptance and belief you’ll get “eternal life”. It amazes me how fantastically dumb some people really, since it is “life” that is the problem, and not the solution. When your life (like my failed life) is ruined with failures, grievances, loneliness, and pain, the promise of eternal life just don’t swing it for me. I have come to sincerely believe I was a mistake, I have no purpose, I’m just alive. And being alive is just not enough. No one knows what depression is like until they’ve experienced it, it is not a mental health problem! That’s insulting! When everything goes wrong in my life, I don’t need quacks to tell me I’m brain damaged. It’s fucking life that has damaged and destroyed me!
Organized religion makes me sick. It does nothing, I am living proof. God has not saved anyone from anything. It is a story we were taught as children, but we are alone in the world. I hate living with all of the issues I have not to mention the horrible state of the world. We are all going to die soon enough due to Climate Change, but here again, no one wants to believe that, but science is proving otherwise, and if God existed why wouldn’t he intervene since you believe he created everything.
I hope to kill myself one day, just need to be a little bit more disgusted.
How can you not be suicidal when you’ve lived the most honest, dignified,innocent,humble reality onIy to be increasingly mistreated where ever you go everytime,everywhere,by everyone,including people of your own ethnic background? For no good reason. Without provoking anyone. For existing.
Why should I be apologetic or feel like an inferior inconvenience to the white,attractive,native people of the country I was born in? No one will employ me but I have volunteered since a young age,within organisations as well as emitted a series of stupidly honest,kind,generous actions. As a 23 year,old respectable female who holds high values for self and society,and is worthy of equality and inclusion, it’s beyond unacceptable and wrong how I’m continuing to be mocked, discriminated, hated, isolated, neglected and worse by all kinds of people in society.
What have I done so wrong to deserve this mistreatment? Honestly, nothing. I am in a more vulnerable,disadvantaged situation than ever before and stubbornly I still thoroughly ask wherever and whoever I can think of for help. One of the worst parts after actually being desperate enough to feel the need to reach out, is the utterly disgusting ways the ones who are supposed to help, literally disrespect and dismiss me and they get pleasures and payments from my misery, whilst I’m living as probably the country’s poorest, above the homeless.
I can’t even trust authority figures like the police or professional like the GPs. So many examples in my own experience of them abusing their privileged power including the police escort calling me pathetic whilst I’m in the middle of crisis to one coming to my then house when I called them the first time in my life, and totally joking around with comments such as ‘just checking there’s no dead bodies ‘ and ‘who’s the white woman?’ to differentiate the one (in his eyes superior) middle aged, Irish,caucasian whore that trespassed into my elderly Father’s home with imbecilic of an aged half sibling causing distress to my elderly, disabled parents. It was no crime for to lock my door and call the police. But when people have money, and the privilege of being white and flirting her big Irish busom with the low life police, well they get away with anything and everything,clearly.
As a 23 yr old, British female I should not be scared to leave my council flat (a very poor way of Living indeed) every day because of the colour of my ethnicity and for being ‘different ‘. I hate the area but have no choice. I had to get out of home,and it took a lot of begging but the housing people stuck me here, where I will never fit in. The Asian taxi driver who is disgustingly rude and nosy, unhesitantly stated ‘why do you live here you’re Indian’. What a bastard. As though I have choice. As though it’s easy. But very sadly the reality is beyond harsh.
There are many things that have happened in the last 10 years that any same person should question how and why I am still here. Incidents and issues include bullying, getting unfairly withdrawn from college courses, unemployment, harassment, ugliness, lack of fruition, injustices, ignorance, racism,discrimination, fraud, and more ruthlessly no ones cares. No one takes me seriously when I speak up.
People have actually, maliciously encouraged me to kill myself, such as the woman from Samaritans, a charity that is supposed to help.
But despite my undiagnosed illnesses, crying all the time, ocd, anxiety, depression, failure, stress, reputation, misfortune,unwanted memories and thoughts, ugliness, unemployment, isolation, bad experiences, poverty, disadvantages and all the bad, I stubbornly refuse to commit suicide. Deal with it Lucifer.
THX for sharing! O:)
Wow….you sound like an amazing young woman, you have made think. Thank you Rachel.
I struggle daily to find reasons to be here. I’ve tried, God knows I have. Its at that point where its starting to scare me. I’ve thought about suicide from a young age, around 13. I’m now 34and I’ve lost that sense of wonder for life. Talking does nothing. Being with family and friends does nothing. I’ve started taking down my social media accounts. I’ve started giving away personal belongings. I feel that I am inevitably moving into the next part. I know these actions rip families apart, but I cant be strong for them anymore. I cant be here just for them.
Paul,
Please let a friend or family member know what you’re going through.
Please, also, talk to a therapist, doctor, minister, or another professional about what you’re thinking and feeling.
You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800.273.8255 (TALK) or use the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. I also list other resources here.
I know you said you can’t be here just for your family. One day you might be grateful you are here just for you, too.
Any suicide is a great loss, it’s a shame to go to a dark senseless place within ourselves that we cannot reach what life has for us. Feeling and emotional troubles we can control by just not going there and force attention on something else not yourself that selfish. Suicide is a selfish act and should not be a choice.
Anonymous,
Thank you for your comment. I know many people do think that suicide is selfish, but I think that misplaces blame. The blame belongs to the illness, stress, or trauma that compels a person to die by suicide, not to the suicide itself, in my opinion. I write more about that in my post, “Is It Selfish to Die in a Tornado?”
That said, because you also posted on my Facebook page in relation to Stephanie’s comment that her son would be better off without her, I appreciate the point that I think you’re trying to make, which is that someone who is suicidal should not devalue or minimize their importance to others. On that, I agree.