Suicide Attempt Survivors Archives

Learning to Hope after 30 Years of Depression and a Suicide Attempt

December 1, 2021

31

In May of 2015, I made a disabling suicide attempt by jumping in front of a Metro train. Somehow, I survived. My suicidal self had lied to me. It made me believe the only way to end my pain was to end…

Why I Came Out of the (Suicide) Closet

by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW

May 16, 2017

48

What will people think of you? What will people say about you? Some people asked me these questions when I told them I was publishing an essay in the New York Times (“A Suicide Therapist’s Secret Past”) about a very dark time…

Wait, Who Is A Suicide Survivor?

by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW

May 27, 2014

93

Across the Internet and elsewhere, people apply the term suicide survivor to two different groups of people: 1) people who struggled with suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide, and survived, and 2) people who were never suicidal at all, but who lost a…

How to Find a Therapist Who Does Not Panic about Suicide

by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW

July 22, 2013

52

A huge fear of many people who think about suicide is that they will go to a therapist who panics at the mention of the word “suicide.” Some therapists do, in fact, panic. This can take several forms. A panicky therapist may…

Do You Blame Yourself for Being Suicidal?

by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW

July 10, 2013

17

“I had no idea what I had done to you, although I should have known it in retrospect. So I guess now is a good time to say I am sorry, although it is about 19 years too late.” Those words came…

Where Are They Now?: The Fate of Suicide Attempt Survivors

by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW

July 5, 2013

59

Say someone wants to die by suicide so badly that they go to the Golden Gate Bridge to jump off. But then they are stopped from jumping. What happens to them afterward? You might think that, once freed from the authority figures who…