What happens when it hurts too much to live? Can it really be too painful to live one more moment with emptiness, depression, and despair? Yes, for some people suicide seems like the only way out.
Not every person who contemplates killing themselves is truly interested in ending their time on earth. For many, suicidal thoughts are about escape — musing about the idea of leaving the bonds that bind them to other people, responsibilities to burdens, and the despair of what they can’t change. If they could just escape it, maybe they still could go on somehow. Not right now, but after a while. They just need to get away from it.
Suicidal thoughts and actions are also sometimes paired with strong impulses and low inhibitions. This can happen with drugs and alcohol, bipolar disorder, or any personality style that leans more toward action than consideration. When a depressed or desperate mood gets legs, a person could be in real physical danger.
These are all fictional examples, but you can see how impulse plus mood problems can equal suicide.
- A person in despair over a broken relationship sits on the train tracks where the train traffic is regular. They’ve had several beers and are feeling everything so strongly.
- A person with rapidly shifting moods has had a lot of problems lately. They are driving in their car and are thinking about what would happen if they slammed into a wall or tree.
- A person who’s had trouble in the public eye and a history of depression and drug use. They become sick of the daily emotional rollercoaster, grab their gun, and load up a few bullets.
Many people each day are walking around with enormous amounts of emotional pain. Living is difficult, they’ve lost loved ones, the future looks bleak, and they feel backed into a corner. But not everyone contemplates suicide. Some hold very strong religious beliefs that prevent them from ever taking any action. Others hold an important value on life in general, and can tell themselves that there has to be another way.
Sadly, many people do have very scary thoughts about ending their life. Some come very close to the brink of action before pulling back. Others only have fleeting thoughts. The “invasion” of depression into a person’s mind can make difficult things seem much more than just difficult — they become impossible.
They see no reason to live on after their spouse has died. They see no way out of their financial troubles. They think there is no more purpose for them after their serious injury or illness. This black and white thinking can trap a person into a narrow chute, seeing their demise as they only reasonable choice. And I’m not saying that the pain isn’t real or extremely intense. It’s the thought process and judgment that balances emotion, and depression thinking just isn’t straight.
For any of you who have been down this path, I invite you to add on comments and expand on this little post. There’s no way a few hundred words can do justice to the topic except to introduce it. If you are feeling strongly about suicide and don’t feel safe, I urge you to contact your local police or hospital right away. They are trained to help you get through your immediate crisis, and then get you the further specialized mental health help that you need. And for those I have known who have taken their own lives, your deaths have made a lifelong impression on me.
706 comments
Wow, I feel for everyone here. I’ve been Dx-ed with depression/bipolar for over 20 years. When you feel suicidal, you’re just not thinking about everyone else. You just feel bad. I have a husband and two kids (teenagers). I’ve never said a word about my thoughts of ending my life. There will be no note. Thankfully, I have been doing a bit better lately. But, to read all these posts – I am so there. I feel at home. I soooo understand. And, it’s nice to know there are others out there like me. While I feel so alone, I’m not really. It’s sad, but true.
I don’t think suicide is a sin or you go to hell for it. I don’t think you’re in your right mind. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re hurting so bad. God has to have the most deepest compassion on you. My opinion, FWIW.
I am amazed at all the responses here. What does this say????? Wow….
kacey, I to have been depressed for many years.i also have a eating disorder.my life now is truely a mess,a time bomb ticking.i feel so alone and tired of feeling the hopelessness.every day I prey to god for some relief but it seems like he’s not listening.how long do I have to suffer?i don’t think I could end my life but it is getting more and more difficult to go on like this.please pray for me.god bless you and yours.tim
If suicide will help you then do it or not then for god sake don’t do it, Its your choice but so human life is so important don’t wast it instead, think in terms of going to the super market do buy something that you can return or do you say no I will keep even though you don’t like it,
The Choice is yours,
that all I can say Good Luck.
Says how desperate we all are for resolution.
I think it’s often seen as a last resort when all else has failed…usually in circumstances where living causes intense suffering (both physical and mental). We’re quick to put a dog down, but we wouldn’t dare do that to a human being especially when they are suffering from debilitating diseases to which there are no cures. Add that to the lack of social support and financial security, suicide is almost inevitable. It’s kind of appalling that physicians can see the suffering their patients are going through but can do nothing else but force them to take medications that only add to the problem. In this respect, I feel that suicide is justifiable…but it should be the painless euthanasia.
It’s difficult to rationalize suicide in other contexts, especially when there is no overt physical problems but rather psychological pain. Suicide in adolescents and young adults is hard to conceptualize because we expect these individuals to survive and conquer…to pass their genes on to future offspring. However, there are several internal factors that can predispose one to commit suicide that are very real to the individual.
I don’t think I can understand the reasoning behind suicide for trivial matters such as during existential crisis. Many people who feel conflicted about the “meaning” of life, often commit suicide to prove a point or because “they’re bored”…that’s a little farfetched.
At the end of the day there are two sides to every story. However, it’s human nature to care for others and interpret suicide in a negative way. We always want people to live long and fulfilling lives, but most importantly thrive and persevere in spite of obstacles that life puts in our paths.
I have been at Suicis’s Door myself. Both my brother and sister committed suicide. My friends who have never experienced this are very judgement and critical.
Other’s who have never experienced this pain are at a total loss of what this pain is like.
My heart aches for all of you experiencing this sadness.
I Love All of You and my heart pleads for you to hold on because you are the special people in this world.
I would enjoy hearing back from anyone out their.
Wow. Thanks for sharing that. I can’t imagine losing a brother and sister but then I am an only child. So I’ve always just been alone. Can I ask how you’ve been able to survive, as in what has worked for you when you feel like you’re just passing the time?
I thank you all for sharing your deepest thoughts, pain and insights.
It’s hard to believe that this is what we spend our time thinking about and discussing…our internal dilemma of whether to choose our own self-imposed demise. Amazing that we have the consciousness to even discuss and consider this like no other living creature.
Sometimes I think it is because it is the strangely only ultimate power and control we can finally show ourselves we have over our lives instead of remaining as victims of our moods, illness and a mental health system as a whole with all of its unintentional inadequacies.
The reality is we are mostly guinea pigs anyways despite the mental health fields’ various experts and practitioners (whether through medications, other therapies or both)because any true expert on the brain and how it works will ultimately have to admit that they have only scratched the surface of how it works and mood interacts. Latest professional I heard said that maybe 3-4% of how the brain works is truly understood. Most drug therapies are unpredictable as to their effect and even the reasons they work in one case and not another, completely unexplained.
There is no doubt that the real nagging indecision we all face in thinking about this choice springs from three main sources:
1. The finality of the decision.
2. Our concern for those others in our lives who will be affected in the short and long term.
3. The feeling that we have at least occasionally experienced true joy (however brief and fleeting) and might miss the opportunity of that ever happening again. (How sad!!!)
I don’t judge anyone for of how they choose on this, it’s a very personal and individual expression.
Have any of you also noticed that with each deeper and longer depression that what I call “symbiotic withdrawal” becomes more intense and more superficial with those who do keep up some contact with you? You already want to withdraw and not talk to anyone anyhow.
What I mean is that with each bout of depression, any remaining contacts, be they relatives, friends and even psychiatric professionals that haven’t already left your circle, do so even more each time around. More loneliness and isolation
If they haven’t actually left your circle, sometimes it’s actually worse. You can already hear what’s going on in the heads of those that try to remain with you somewhat.
“Oh no, here they go again. Another one of their never ending depressions! Remember how much discomfort, time, energy, effort (perhaps even financial help) I invested in him/her last time? For this to happen another time? I don’t have the availability, energy… (fill in whatever other blanks applicable ) to do this again! I have my own life and enough of my own problems and issues!!! “(That unfortunately for us, is not their fault and it’s also the truth! They don’t owe you anymore and have a right to happiness in their own lives without your “muckâ€!!!)
So what happens is even when you do infrequently speak to each other (mostly only out of guilt on both sides: you don’t want to hurt them, they don’t want to feel like they have abandoned you) those conversations become an exercise in discussing anything other than what really matters.
It’s where the hypocrisy of those who don’t really know your individual head, situation and life history is and where they have no real right to judge or even really advise you.
I also don’t accept that anyone can live only for the benefit of others (even your own kids) with nothing in it for yourself. This is abnormal, unrealistic, and sadistic to anybody.
To those do-gooders of you who discuss “modeling behavior for your childrenâ€â€¦. do I continue on suggesting to my kids that the miserable, sad, single, lonely, hopeless, insolvent, unemployed, treatment resistant, ever-crumbling father they have in front of them is a hero they should aspire to be like because he stuck it out? That (in my case) he made the gutless indecisive choice to stick around instead of allowing them to have the options a good will, executor, and life insured trust with over $1,000,000 could have had for their now teenaged futures, rather than let this option also disappear shortly because of their “idiot†dad’s recent financial and other choices?
I get mad at those who guilt trip someone like Jude, previous in this blog, who among others really touched my heart. Those people with recurring and largely treatment –resistant depression/bi-polar/adult ADHD etc. and the cumulative financial and emotional effect it’s had on their lives by middle age.
Ultimately, how those who remain behind decide to process and deal with my choice is their responsibility! Just like my choice is ultimately mine! They too must go on their own journey and figure things out for themselves. Like for me, their self-worth and identity cannot be defined by someone else’s actions. They need to discover who and why they are and how to get along in the world, just as they would after any unexplainable tragedy. Ultimately, this is not my responsibility; they can choose to respond to the events in their lives how they will, just as I am expected to.
I don’t pretend to have the right answers but I would not presume to judge or admonish the many who have made or are thinking about this choice.
Who really knows any individual’s complete, intricate story and daily personal hell and can presume to tell them how to choose?
Just my brief (hahaha) contribution on the subject.
I’d appreciate further logical and non-judgmental comment on my thoughts.
Mur
Thank you for writing this. You’ve articulated similar things I’ve said to professionals. Also how psychology is the one area where they just give us meds without looking at scans of our individual brains. One psychologist actually got upset when I said I was tired of being a guinea pig. The word triggered her ego. Feels like that’s what a lot of us have to deal with, egos in a chair who are frustrated when I make there job more difficult then just prescribing me an anti-depressant only to not really care if they’ve heard from me months in between.
Powerful. Professionals cringe at the mention of euthanasia as if you’re a mental case for asking for relief of a life time of suffering.
I came upon your page unexpectantly and am suprised with how true your words are. I am a professional woman, married, have 3 adult children and a grandson. I have suffered from depression for many years and now suffer from treatment resistant depression/MDD. I in the past year have had two suicidal attempts, this past one was more significant but I guess thankfully i’m alive. I have many thoughts of suicide and as you described it is basically an “escape” from everything. I used to have a strong faith that kept me from acting on any thoughts but that has disappeared. Now I just try to keep going. I have a huge issue with compulsiveness regarding suicide, that is one thing that worries me. I feel like an incredible failure at everything. I have very poor self esteem along with self hatred. I have many co-workers, friends, & family that continue to tell me what a wonderful woman I am, how I have helped so many people, & how strong I am and all of the things that i’ve accomplished and overcome. Yet I don’t feel that way at all. No one seems to understand that and how could I possibly feel the way I do. I was always pretty confident at work and now I just stress everyday before my shift because I feel so incompetant, so many of my collegues tell me that they would not have guessed that by how I perform yet inside i’m terrified. I have been on so many different medications, combos of meds, ECT treatments (which helped briefly but unfortunately I was one of the people that had huge memory losses). After many pscyhiatrists I have finally found one that is incredible, he has seen me these past couple of years through all of the major depression issues i’ve ever been through. I also have a cutting edge psychiatrist that treats me inpatient and is also involved with new studies and treatments. I have been hospitalized several times. I wish their was an easy answer, I feel like I just don’t know how much longer I can stay this way. My work has been somewhat ok with my medical leaves but I do get grief from my managment because they just don’t understand depression. My co-workers have been incredible. I am the primary income in our family so by my missing so much work it just adds to the whole mess. You have hit the spot with your comments. After my last suicide attempt and how severe it was I sit and wonder do I really want to die? Maybe not but I know I definitely want to escape this life (my life) so much that sometimes it seems to be the only option. I don’t mean to repeat myself but I was just amazed at your posting. I will continue to try and go on but it is so incredibly difficult. As for now i’m going to be trying several new meds. I’ve had several that seem to help but then I end up with all of the major side effects and we have to stop them. So in conclusion I just want to say thank you for your posting. it makes me think more indepth. Thank you for reading. I know that suicide is devestating to family and friends, but the effects of MDD is unreal. I’ve been told that i’m selfish for my acts but what do you do when you feel so incredibly down and worthless?
Wanda –
I’m still somewhat surprised at the response to this posting. Glad that it has helped you think about what’s going on and that others do understand your experience.
Everyone –
It’s hard for me to know what to say in response to the very emotional posts describing such difficulties. Just know that my thoughts and sincere prayers are with you as you move through each day.
In response to Mur- You are absolutely correct. With each bout of depression it does get worse, those around you don’t take it seriously and little by little everyone walks away….including the therapist. Thats when one realizes what a cruel, twisted joke this life actually is. It makes all the difference in the world if one person just genuinly extends their hand to you and says that you are not alone, but ultimately…..I am in this alone-
Anna:
Thank you for giving my post your response.
Anna, Christina, Dan, Jude, Wanda and others:
I appreciate your communicating your situations and absolutely identify with your opinions and responses.
Erika:
Your thoughts and prayers ( even by a former Catholic, now Agnostic) are appreciated for their true sincerity if not their actual usefulnesss (sorry but hopefully a professional light on the futility we all seem to feel daily ,not meant as a jab).
I am, however, surprised at how little else in my post was responded to.
Anymore thoughts from anyone or am I just delusional at either being right or as to how important what I have to say is.
PLEASE give me some more feedback for what I’ve said. Wishing you all greater peace.
Mur
Anna, Jude, Christina:
Is their a form on Psych Central we could chat or email each other?
Mur
Mur,
I was reading over your post and I have to agree with many things that you have mentioned. It is very sad that depression leads many of our lives.
I always feel like, “well her she goes again” when it comes to my “bottoming out”. I tell many close friends etc. that i’m sure they don’t want to hear about it. I do have many people that tell me that they are here for me. I have actually told my provider that I don’t see why he wants to continue working with me because of these bouts and the fact that I have so many Medication complications. He of course could not believe that I would even think that and actually told me that no matter what he is in the long run with me. Previously I did not have any providers like that. Actually one of my last providers told me that I needed to deal with my depression or deal with the medication side effects. That ended that pt/provider relationship.
My husband has been trying to understand and really thinks he “gets it”. He asks me daily how am I doing. If I tell him it’s not a good day well then he gets upset and angry which doesn’t help. So most of the time I just am the Wanda everyone wants for the most part. But at whose expense.
I keep hoping for those “happy moments” to come and occassionaly I will have a few moments. I just don’t feel like myself and haven’t for so long. I question who I am always. I wish I could figure that out because I think that will be a big step for me.
I am a health care provider and I run into many people who suffer from depression and I am always giving them important information about the disease and what to do if they feel suicidal yet I can’t do this for myself?
So I don’t know what to say. I guess that I just continue to strive on and hopefully at some point I will be able to function as I used to.
Well I guess that is about it for now. Thank you for your genuine honesty and really making a point of several things I just didn’t think about.
Wanda
Wanda,
I am a mental health provider myself. Though I am not depressed now, I wonder how I was able to give info and help others while actually suffering from it myself at the same time.
Seemed sort of hypocritical or something, but I didn’t actually realize what was going on at the time (if you can believe it). Really tried to believe it was circumstantial or work-related stress instead of postpartum depression.
It’s an odd place to be, both the caregiver and the sufferer, isn’t it? That’s proof that just knowledge isn’t always enough to help in your time of need. Take care and keep at it.
Mur,
I am looking into the forum question for you, and I’ll let you know what I find. Thanks for your interest. In the meantime, you are all certainly welcome to continue posting here on this thread.
I just found a news article on Psych Central from May of 2008 about a new option for treatment resistant depression.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/04/30/brain-stimulation-for-treatment-resistant-depression/2206.html
Here are some other important resources from right here on PsychCentral:
Suicide Helpline
http://psychcentral.com/helpme.htm
Suicide and Crisis Resources
http://psychcentral.com/resources/Suicide_and_Crisis/
I’d also recommend:
http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/
and our survivors of suicide support group on NeuroTalk:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum29.html
If you need to chat with someone right now, email:
[email protected]
or call the National Suicide Helpline:
800-273-8255
Anna:
Sorry for missing such a simple response to one of your comments!
For what it’s worth on-line, you can have my hand and heart for that matter. You are not completely alone, even if this is only “cyberspace”.
I understand your pain and hope you can turn to someone or somewhere somehow soon and find help and eventually some happiness. Until then you will be in my thoughts.
Mur
Wanda, Erika, and John:
Thank you for your thoughts and the links you provided. They provide more useful food for thought.
To Anyone:
I appreciate and could use the comfort of communication and feedback I seem to get from this, like someone cares!
Anybody got the courage to comment or challenge some of the less commonly discussed, maybe even controversial assertions I made in my March 4th posting?
Why should I choose to live only for others’ benefit, or as I also state, choose to live to their real potential detriment?
To confront why despite repeated long(years at a time) depressions and then repetative wrong decisions when I wasn’t depressed in my life (which then just sent me back there again), I should believe I can make the right decisions as I move forward in life from here?
Why should I believe in myself now at 46?
In the last 3 years, I have ended a twenty year marriage to a chronically depressed wife (10 years now) who is on permanent disability and has been hospitalized repeatedly for as long as 11 months consecutively,tried to raise 3 teenagers decently,lost my real one true love (a new partner), lost a very sucessful business, a career, my dad died(my one constant supporter and cheerleader), my house in 2006, and am now about to lose a another house and a rental home I bought and renovated last year January. I am also about to go bankrupt and lose near everything else I own.
Much of this has occurred because of decisions I made which were viable but that I then didn’t properly follow through on.
I have been parlysed by depresssion since last
fall and am unable to take whatever actions I could to at least improve or reduce the inevitable financial and personal destrcution that will imminently begin this month (no job and months behind on various payments).
It’s like I keep procrastinating so that when things get bad enough I will finally get the courage to do what I have been thinking of for months now. I also don’t trust my own judgement anymore about anything or anyone never mind a real future. I have a mess of complicated financial affairs and documentation I just can’t get the energy to organize and make sense of to anyone else with nobody else to help me through it.
I hide in sleep all day to make it go away and can’t answer my phone anymore for all the creditor calls.
I just want it all to end and me with it so I don’t have to try to rebuild some semblance of a happy, reasonably financially secure future from less than nothing at age 46 with no job! Finding another friend, partner and lover seems impossible, what stable middle-aged woman would want to take this burdensome needy, loser?
I can’t try to rebuild some kind of life yet again!!!
Maybe they wouldn’t, you should be going for younger anyway; they would. Maybe you’ll pull through man. Take it easy and go get some hot chocolate brother. I know what hell on earth is; decades of it; life is like the Forex market – you’re gonna lose but the upswing is always there. Ride the wave.
I’m in my 30’s and though people usually think I’m a lot younger. It only makes me feel worse. Cause mentally depression sure gives you a lot of insights and views that set you apart. I suppose if someone is attracted to you at your best they might continue wanting to see more of that but very rare that people are willing to stick it out with you at your worst. Something I’ve learned quite fast my self. Eventually my looks will be gone and right now that’s the only reason people find me interesting rather than sad.
Nobody out there anymore or did I say something wrong?
Mur
You said nothing wrong, I understand and can relate to everything that you have said. I get it completely and ask myself the same questions daily, yet here we both are commenting on a blog on PsychCentral, as are many others. It seems to be that the ones usually listening are the ones that we don’t know but are more like us than we could imagine, so I guess, in essence, we are not alone. Day by day, one breath at a time.
Thanks Anna!
It was good to hear from you as I appreciate your understanding and that someone is listening!
However, the pain of no answers or real and practical day to day help is wearing me down to less and less of what matters to me each day.
I mostly cry now for my kids if I leave them (responsibily, well planned and financed as that might be)and for courage for myself one way or the other.
Have a good night.
Mur
I can’t give you any answers because I don’t know the answers myself. I’ve done the the therapy, read every book, tried many different anti depressants and I still am right where I began. I don’t know the answer.
As for your kids, I also have kids and it breaks my heart to know that my children deserve so much more but they are by far my will that has gotten me this far.
Like I said, I take it literally day by day, that’s the only way I can do it. Best of luck to you with each passing day.
So in the end, what I have got from this series of posts is: no answers, no end in sight, just struggle along, take another breath and beg that the next one is easier?
I truly think I want the courage for another alternative because this just isn’t reasonable.
Can anyone out their give me better than a faint hope to carry on, to hope for better than this? To believe in a future that rises above this garbage? Please give me something to cling to that seems real and substantsial other than saying “luck”!!!
Sorry Anna, but “best of luck sorting things out” is what the love of my life said to me when she dumped me by email. I can’t go on with just that!!! As we all know it means nothing, good wishes accompanied with no real help, solutions, care, responsibility or real practical substance!!! It’s what people say when they run, hide, give up on you, and won’t lift another finger, no matter how slight. Not that this is owed, but I believe is an inherent resposibility from those (I realize this does not include you Anna) from those who have said or claim they love/loved you in the recent past. You don’t just bail and run!!!
Sorry, calling it as I see it.
Mur
Mur,
Since you are asking for discussion, I’ll just throw this out where I read it at Baltimoresun.com in the opinion/commentary section from tues March 10 (a piece about suicide):
Suicide is a symptom of a problem, not a solution.
Or, as a patient shared with me years ago: suicide is a terminal solution to resolvable problems.
I won’t pull punches here, people do end up killing themselves, as that is what suicide is, personal homicide, but in the end, as I said in an earlier posting at this site, if you want to see the legacy you leave behind from your premature death, go to the funeral of a suicide first. Pardon the use of words here, but, if you can “live” with knowing others will be in pain by your ending your life, then I can only say I am sorry you could come to that conclusion.
You are sharing here. Take it to the next level and share out in the carbon based world.
I hope you will be surprised to learn others do care and have a perspective you might not fully comprehend until you hear it in person.
Be well, and be alive.
Mur
Im sorry I cant give you more for I have not figured it out myself. In many ways I feel the same way that you do and I am in the same situation, desperately searching for something to hang on to. Just as you and I both read the blogs here and post about it…..Ive come to realize that I am the only one who can give myself a “reason” to go on. I cannot rely on anyone else for that, for even if someone is there and truly cares, I fail to recognize it and don’t believe it regardless. But, I have made it a point to come back and check this to respond to you. Though it may not mean anything, I am listening.
“Ive come to realize that I am the only one who can give myself a “reason†to go on. I cannot rely on anyone else for that, for even if someone is there and truly cares, I fail to recognize it and don’t believe it regardless.”
Anna, for me, sad,,lonely, but true, you’re right, but I just cannnot accept that I am truly so alone and don’t want to be, so desparately yearn to be there with someone else who might support me to help bring me back to enable an otherwise brillaint self to be all that I can be. However, too many real world,practical “wows” for that to be realistic now, but I genuinely appreciate your caring followup.
To “Therapyfirst”, what I need to recover what is salvageable from my life is not just a Psychiatrist, psychologist/social worker but a “tactical support team” all working in tandem,including someone with some bookeeeping/accounting sense who can help me sort out the paper work mess I have made of my (recently diagnosed Adult ADHD) life(like all that’s gonna happen!!!).
So I continue down the “chute” to oblivion and persistent re-occuring depression.
The constant ups and “near” dramatic successes in my life, and now imminentally permanent failures at age 46. All of which leads me to another “mega-depression” which I spent 3.5 years (and a lot of cash I don’t have any of this time) digging myself out of last time.
So this time what? 4 years of agony and no cash to feel maybe(if I’m reaally lucky) 1 year (instead of 1.5 years,last time) of purpose and real meaning from life and love???? This roller coaster is the life I’m meant to live? Do I have to dive this far and deep, however euphoric the brief,intermittent and sometimes exquisite highs are, only to plunge so far that the next “high” cannot be possibly as good as those of my younger years?
Anna: “But, I have made it a point to come back and check this to respond to you. Though it may not mean anything, I am listening.”This is the sweetest and most thoughtful thing you could say/do under the circumstances…. Thank you so much.
And finally again, “therapyfirst”, yes, I have already attended the funeral of a 16 year old son of my best friend(my age) who hung himself last year. This after the same friend’s brother, killed himself by car exhaust 3 years ago. And yes, the questions nag about what my friend/anyone could have done.
But they are not so different from what my friend could ask that he “shoulda, coulda, wouda” done diferently if his son or brother would have been struck dead by a terrorist roadside bomb,9/11, freak accident, cancer, stroke or some other cause. These are all questions to which there are no answers.
They are also questions which I intend to advise my kids/relatives/friends to move on from as there are nothing but personal answers/questions in this situation from which to either agonize or grow on.
To my kids especially, and /or anyone else my advice would be this. If you’ve got to age 46, done the therapy/drugs/self-help and still can’t stand it… make your choice as you see fit. If you still haven’t found your place by then there is nothing anyone will do but you. If the pain of only what you can do by this point is too much, than do what your heart says you need to.
Ages 46, 5, 16, 62, 85, these are all but a flash in the pan of time. Live them fully, or not at all if that’s what need be to give you true peace.
Another 46,5,16… years of torture ain’t gonna necessarily do you… or your loved ones anymore good. They could! But they may also cause more selfish emotional and financial harm if you can’t “do it right”.
This is the decision you have to arrive at realistically from your own past and “track record” and truly decide for yourself if you can really improve on.
Mur,
You know, your comment about needing a “tactical team” struck me. I used to work for a community mental health agency, funding in large part by state and government money. It allows for a sliding fee scale and sometimes no cost to the person in need.
At this agency, there is a “day program” that goes on either at the facility or in your home as needed. There is also a residential program for about 6-18 months where the “team” helps you get things going in the right direction and helps you transition to independent living.
I think you would need to speak to your primary doctor or mental health provider about finding out the qualifications in your state for having a persistent mental illness (though it seems that you probably do just from your stories), where some of these programs are, getting you in the door, etc.
This is exactly what these programs are for – helping people who have persistent problems with mental health develop a meaningful life and get back on their feet with the help of a support team.
You may also find info on your state’s webpage about mental health services and qualifications. This really is a team effort and you will not be in it alone. You may even find good connections with those who have faced similar issues as you.
Mur:
you have me at a disadvantage as I am communicating to you through a keyboard and not having the ability to talk directly, as I am a true believer in non verbal cues as much as the spoken word. The ball is in your court. You have presented your position, and now all I can say is make responsible choices. If you have been to funerals of suicides, then you know the legacy. I just hope whatever your beliefs in afterlife give you validity in future choices.
There is more to gain in life than death. You have to believe that to appreciate it.
Good luck in future decisions.
By the way, Dr Grohol has an opinion or comment at this post?
Thanks for yout input. But in my case, there is more to gain in death.
A $1,000,000 in life insurance and maintenance
of a home for my kids and some kind of financial legacy to build their lives with versus the impending bankruptcy with no career or job that I face if I remain much longer.
For me, an end to pain, endless uncertainty and loneliness, an end to constant self – defeating thinking about all the screw ups at every level of my life, professional, personal, relationships and financial that got me to this point at 46. An end to all the “coulda,shoulda,wouldas” of the past, where my life might have been so different as recently as the last year or so.
I have no basis to trust my own judgement or insticts for any other way out, or to find one that would be remotely palletable.
Logic dictates what I should be doing here, if and when I can find the courage to carry it out and after at least getting it together enough to do the minimum to properly arrange my affairs (correct beneficiaries on my life insurance and redo my will).
For me, I don’t see any other solutions to this alternative except poverty for me and my kids as well as a life of endless regrets.
You will do what you believe, but, will your beliefs do you good?
One last recommendation before you move forward with decisions: talk to three different people who’s parents committed suicide, and really listen to how they moved on in life after the suicide.
I would be surprised if at least two did not say in so many words, “I failed my parent some how”, and/or “why didn’t they ask me how I felt about their choice before they acted on it.” If you are ok with that legacy with your children, I am sorry to hear that.
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but I do know this, the ultimate selfish act of suicide has consequences, some I may not know exactly for you, but, they are out there.
Again, be well, and be alive. I will not reply further as I guess my points are repetitive, but, I like the line in the MASH episode I spoke of earlier: let’s hope it is a long and healthy hate (at the very least).
My brother killed himself when I was 13, he was 16. I miss him like crazy. I’ve tried it twice. It almost worked too. When I was 16 I tried, got scared and drove myself to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. Then after my husband died of cancer at 25 (I was 23), and went through a bad spot in a relationship, I tried again. It almost worked that time. My boyfriend found me after I took all of the remaining pain meds my late husband had while battleing cancer. He did CPR until the paramedic’s showed up and medi-vaced me 300km away, where I was pronounced brain dead and was then sent another 300km to get my organs harvested. When I was being checked out before they started to cut me open, they realized that I was NOT braindead, and was very much alive, but in a coma. I was in the hospital for over 6 weeks. I have no memory of what happened, encluding taking the pills. I just kinda woke up in the hospital, knowing that I tried to kill myself, but not remembering actually doing it. I was finally released. My pain doesn’t end there. I batteled with my memory on a daily basis, not remembering when I took my meds, if I had talked to someone that day, or what I went to the grocery store for. I then went out one night with my boyfriend for a good time. It didn’t turn out good. We ended up getting in a huge fight with a bunch of people, and are now fighting the charges. We decided to get a fresh start somewhere else, but I didn’t turn out good either. He was not happy there and wanted to return to where they came from. I didn’t want to go and felt heartbroken to leave. It also made me think about why we were going. What did we have there? Nothing. I felt like it was his way to get rid of me. Knowing how much I didn’t want to be there, it would surely cause problems if we did go. So now what do I do? Go to the one place in the world I don’t want to be, or lose the one person in the world I want to be with the most?
as i have read through some of these things i do see i am not alone in how i feel but, it doesnt make any difference. i have been fighting suicidal thoughts for years and have had some attempts some so close..this time i am going to make damned sure i die. i know it may cause pain and as i was told today it was selfish well it is selfish for folks to want mt to continue living in such pain. what is wrong with merciful killing. folks do it for those in physical pain it has not gotten better so far as the stupid term a permanent solution to temporay problem the prolbems are astill here…just try to support folks you guys being suicidal is not an easy place to be.sure there are those that are impulsive and just do it but so far as i understand a lot of us think about it 24/7 even when i am busy and trying to live my life it is there..as this might just be the last time i do this…you who arent suicidal need to be nicer and thouse that have beaten it i am so very happy for you but it doenst work for me.
kt:
For what it helps, I read your post, I hear your “hurt” and the ideas behind it. I think I am sorrier than most for you and get the desperation of, “Yea right… blah, blah, blah, …. but this doesn’t work for me”.
I understand your feeling of rejection by those you think don’t get it, that everyday “why?” question and how “mean” they seem. Don’t they get we’re “broken” and can’t
“Just Do It”?
I hope you find the solution that is best in both the long and short run for you and those that matter to you.
As for me, I am so torn, yet on such a self-destructive, “not doing enough” to help myself path, that I can’t seem to get away from. I give up! I feel like at 46, I can’t pick up and start from less than “scratch” again.
It’s like I need enough, the final, evidence to finally end it, despite whatever help I can/might still be able to give myself, so I have the justification,and don’t have to face every day like this again.
I feel so alone,there’s nobody else to “rescue” me from myself, but, yet feel so responsible for all that’s screwed up in my life and for those that depend on me.
How else do I get out of this endless disappointment with myself and to those around me and with my life????
Mur
Feeling that I’m just here out of guilt?
Mur
I am seriously suicidal, although I am trying like crazy to think of an alternative, but cannot. Suicide at this point is probably the best option.
I’m a single, middle aged woman alone in this world. No family to help me, well one sister but she has a lot of her own problems and my problems are just an immense burden.
Very soon I will be homeless. I had a decent job 2 years ago and was laid off. I am, at this point, financially destitute with about $15,000 in debt and no credit. I had to move to another area of the country to live with my sister, and there are absolutely no job opportunities for me. No business, and any minimum wage jobs are not given to me. I am completely stuck. I don’t have companionship because of my financial situation, which is a big burden. No home, no car is not exactly date material.
I have tried everything. Social services, etc. and at this point, it appears my only option would be living in a homeless shelter while I try to regroup my life. I know, after being an intelligent, social person in society for many years, that I will not survive or thrive in that atmosphere. I will be terrified and more depressed.
To think about being this alone, this restricted and this burdened by lack of finances for the next 20 or so years is debilitating. I’m a religious person, and for some reason, God does not seem to want to respond. Sometimes, as they say, the answer to prayer is “no.” At any rate, leaving this earth will be easier and will ensure the suffering will end.
Not all people who commit suicide are emotionally unbalanced. This life can be extremely, extremely hard for some people and leaving it may bring us into a better existence.
Suicide is a choice, and in the end, there are some, I hope a true minimal few, who may have to take that path. But, I always ask people who are considering an extreme choice to really make sure they have exhausted all the choices besides “the final one”, because you never know when an earlier choice may open a door to options not considered previously.
My most difficult interaction with a patient was a woman who had incurable, metastatic cancer and wanted to die, but had the perspective that suicide would “damn her”, so was looking for a provider to give her a lethal dose of medication. The problem that got me involved with her was no one else involved in treating her felt comfortable providing that intervention because everyone felt that action would damn them, as murderers. I spent a good period of time talking with her and trying to present the pros and cons to hers and the others side to this dilemma, and in the end we came to agree to disagree, but at least I was able to get her discharged to home to die in an environment that she had the most comfort to finish her life. She died about a week later, and what I gleemed from the grapevine, I sensed family may have provided that terminal dose of meds. If in the end someone did that and could be at peace with that choice, then I guess it worked out for everybody involved.
But, isn’t that what we would prefer as best able to strive to see? That our deaths do not weigh negatively on others who are still alive? That is the legacy of suicide, that it is a pain that gnaws at the souls that still walk on the planet. You may be right it will have no eternal consequences for you the suicided. But, if you have an afterlife that allows you to observe others, can you watch others suffer for your choice?
Just a question, but I think it needs asked.
Be well, and be alive, and enjoy choices!
Hi
I have grappled with depression for 40 years to varying extents. Occasionally deep and visceral (Noon Day Demon) not like that now but I am getting older and have been on meds: Wellbutrin, Effexor, Klonopin (allergic to prozac zoloft etc and Paaxil) for too many years.
I used to have my own businesses and do well, I am almost out of money. Don’t know how to find local resources.
I can function fairly well after 9 hours of sleep for about 5 hours in the morning and marginally for 4 hours in the evening after a three hour nap. I just don’t really have much strength or desire to go on. I have lots of friends and I have a wonderful son and don’t want to saddle him with the trauma and grief of a parent that couldn’t make it. This is not surrounded by a lot of drama in the exterior world as I am very embarrassed about being so abnormal but am running out of ideas, resources and hope. I don’t think I can live alone anymore and don’t know how to find cheap group housing.
Am on Fed Dis for bad PTSD after world trade which is somewhat better (no more running down into basements or crying when planes fly over etc) Agoraphobia when I am tired from psychic exhaustion. I can’t work where there is too much noise or too many people and I start to cry and have to get into a bathroom or my car or someplace safe. Not great for holding down a job.
Does anyone has any ideas or resources? I live just north of New York City. Many Thanks Tzi
FYI to Tizzy(Tzi):
have a frank discussion with the MD prescribing the Klonopin; chronic use of the benzodiazepines, which is the class klonopin is in, can cause or aggravate depressive symptoms. It is interesting and in the end wonderful to watch most patients improve when you get them off the benzos, but they need to be tapered, NOT abruptly discontinued.
Just an opinion, but from an MD.
therapyfirst, board cert psych MD
My sister tried to kill herself recently. I have been depressed in the past and I understand why she did it. She is having such horrible pain in her life that I can hardly think how she’ll ever be OK again.
But in my non-depressed mind I know she still has things worth living for. I don’t know how to help convince her when I have that part of my mind that is just like hers. I know it’s up to her but the mental health care she is getting is not good at all and I feel helpless for her.
I’ve been through a lot of tough times. I’ve experienced a lot of pain, rejection, disappointment, failure, abuse. Many times I wanted to curl up, go to sleep and never wake up. However, every time I fought to live. I fought the urge to end life, a precious life, mine. It is precious to me even if it’s not precious to anyone else. I matter to me, whether anyone else cares of not. I matter to me. I matter. Having experienced the urge, the depression, I can say with truth and knowledge that there is nothing worth giving up this life which was freely given to me. This is my world, this is my life to do with as I choose according to the will of Jesus Christ whom I truly believe in and whom has brought me through the many dark places of defeat.
What do I do? I’m ruining my childrens lives, my husband is turning away from me and no one knows the pain I’m in. I’m one of those people who will sacrifice everything to help others and all the while, my own life is falling apart. I’m angry, tired and want out of it. My family is suffering – my children and husband bear the brunt of my anger and pain. If I was gone, they’d no longer be suffering. Sure they’d miss me, but they could move on, whereas I can’t go anywhere, I’m stuck in this cycle of pain. Why can’t I ask for help? My husband now ignores my pleas – he’s had enough. He doesn’t understand and never will.
My brother killed himself at 31 – I respect him for that. He could not see a way out, so he did what he thought was right. Yes, he left behind a devasted family, but we got through it. I just wish I could talk to him to ask for help – I’m a mess and don’t know what to do. If I was gone, my husband could re-marry and give my children the life they deserve. They need a mother who is well, happy and can love them the way they deserve. They don’t need to burdened with a mother who can’t cope like me. I kissed them tonight and reminded them I loved them and now I just want out. I don’t want to keep going. I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I can’t do it anymore…I just want someone to understand.
The reason why I would commit suicide is because I truly feel so hated. I have been used, rejected, despised, for things I have said or done, and feel the world is truly agianst me. I allow people to treat me any way they want, I have no boundary setting, I blame no one but me. I had crappy parenting. I was raped and molested ages 7-11 and just last week had a nightmare of my brother raping me, because he, over 10 years ago, got caught and is now a registered sex offender. It hurts me that I have no relationship of love with any family or relatives. I meet people who I really love, but don’t know how to sustain and maintain, and nurture those relationships. I am lonely, I am angry, I am terrified, I am depressed. I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a friend, I am a student, I am a patient, I am a neighbor. And I still want to die. I have had all I can take. Many medications, a lot of trauma, and verbal/emotional abuse that haunts me 24/7. I don’t deserve a place on earth and that is the truth. I am a waste of space, people just do not love me, it is a FACT.
Thanks for reading. I don’t play victim, I feel empty and am losing my fight, REALLY losing my fight. It’s me, it is all my fault.
Sorry to anbody else, I just can’t keep up with all the previous writings, especially in my own state of depression and hopelessness. So, to the last two writers:
To Angela: I so identify with everything you wrote, so while it doesn’t change anything, I want you to know I do understand and you are not alone in how you feel. I feel very similarily and hurt with you for the same reasons and for what you are going through even though they probably make no logical sense to someone else. It doesn’t matter though,that’s what others don’t get, because that’s what we go through every day, objectively justified or not!
However,there is also a point, I have finally noticed, that whether spouse, parent, sibling, friend, co-worker, acquaintence,therapist, agency(ies) or whomever else, there is only so much time, energy or even money they can invest before they justifyably need to look after themselves or they screw their own lives up.
So, despite of that maybe not being enough to “fix’ us in our state of living and mind, they finally need to say “Enough already! I can’t help anymore!” You can’t blame them, life is about optimal survival for everyone, us and them! A point where “they” need to take care of themselves.
If a true review of the help you have or could obtain leaves you at verifying that things are at that point, then you need to make this realistic assessment.
“Am I just pained, or am I starting to actually pull others down the drain with me?” If the answer is, “I’m sinking further, no end in sight after realisticaly trying, and now my sticking around is going to hurt and drain more resources than the short and long term “hurt” and drain on resources imposed by my “exit” then you have an answer either way.
Regardless of your choice just make sure your financials (will and life insurance) are properly best arranged for now or whatever your future choice may be for your survivors.
To Kristen: Wow! You make me feel really guilty for just being mentally messed up. You have some real heavy issues that have happened to you past and are haunting your present that would make anyone mentally messed up.
I want you to know this though! None of it’s your fault!!!
You are as deserving of love, friendship and relationships as anybody else!!! You sound like you are younger than me (46) and still have the time/chance to reorient your life.
Seek especially talk (cognitive) therapy if you are able, so you can believe this too and still find the social skills and trust you need to build the relationships you can have to help you through life.
I may not understand your life well enough, but get that part going, and the rest of your life will probably follow through on a more normal path.
Take Care, Mur
Just wanted to say–I’m very experienced at the suicide thing. Started when I was 15 & am now 55. Did overdoses on medications. Stomach was pumped in the ER.
Mother did the same thing over & over again starting when I was 3 until she finally got serious & asphyxiated herself with a plastic bag over her head. She was finally successful at 45. I was 15. She was diagnosed as bipolar. I have the same diagnosis.
But in the last year since I have been doing dialectical behavioral therapy–I have finally been freed fro my suicidal thoughts. They were constant before. I am retraining my thought patterns. My meds provider is amazed at my progress & I am decreasing my dosages of medications & discontinuing some. No longer suffer from acute insomnia such that I had to be so heavily sedated to prevent a manic episode from occurring from lack of sleep (which preceded my last suicide attempt 2 1/2 yrs. ago).
It is unbelievable to me to be free of the suicidal thoughts & desires. I was “white knuckling” it for many yrs. while my children were growing up as when a parent models a coping technique such as committing suicide it makes it easier for the child to do that behavior. I am a prime example of that.
All I’m saying is that I am evidence that this desire to die can be reversed, but it does take hard work (for me it was the dialectical behavioral therapy & indiv. therapy).
Christina: Have you moved? Are you OK?
People who have never been truly suicide rarely understand the experience. I am 39 and have suffered from major depression on and off since I was 12. I first attempted suicide at 13 and a second time in my 20s. I have had every therapy except ECT. As I have gotten older, the only way I have been able to cope is to stop caring about anything. I disguise this to my wife by just repeatedly telling her I don’t need anything. I’m supposed to graduate next month with my MBA, but am actually ashamed of it because it dragged out as a part-time degree because of my depression and a near-suicide attempt halfway through. My wife is upset that I refused to get grad photos taken or attend convocation, but I feel as if I obtained the degree deceptively. She suggested that I get myself a gift to celebrate, like a 52″ TV or an expensive suit, but I just got angry because I think the idea of treating yourself is insane. I know I’m rambling here. I’m just frustrated because I’ve been haunted by this my whole life and have never had the guts to go through with suicide, and as life has gone on it’s just gotten more complicated by marriage, career, and all that. It’s just a god damn spiral of feeling worse and facing worse consequences for offing myself. Depressed people should never marry.
My wife of 35 yrs asked me to leave our home. This was after a 4 day hospitalization for depression. She needs a fresh start. I missed everything that she needed from me emotionally and now I am alone. Why not end it? Failure in marriage is the ultimate failure.
Suzanne: Lucky you, please keep it up!
Mike: Amazing, a successful business person myself once, it’s unbeleivable that even obtaining a MBA (great accomplishment regardless of when or how)does not among other things help us validate ourselves.
To Mike and “TM”, unfortunately, marriage is no substitute for self-validation! More easy choices to make if you don’t have kids though!!
Mur
Don’t give up hang in there.
Hmmm, seems like someone is trying to instill hope to some of the commenters. And that is good. As I wrote two weeks ago here, it is a shame to act out in such an extreme manner with attempting/completeing suicide to then realize what/who was there as a benefit, a positive. I am not minimizing the thought or perspective, just that it is one of several thoughts or perspectives. That is why cognitive behavioral therapy is more often helpful in treating depression–it gets you as the patient to see the skewing between feelings and thoughts and challenges you to reframe or reconsider the direction.
Unhappy people do not see positives or options. Trying to surround yourself around people who have the belief of choices and alternative viewpoints can offer a change.
I was glad to read the commenter who spoke about dialectic therapy. A good therapist will never negotiate there is a place for harming/killing oneself. Glad it worked for you! This site may help more people than the author may have imagined!
Be well, and be alive.
I lost my father two months ago, I am 23 years old and have an amazing life, nevertheless since he died I contemplate suicide every day, I am on meds but they only fix so much-I am currently living overseas until late May and have no close friends in the city where I’m living, I feel as if I have lost the only person who understands me and if I could end my life in the physical realm maybe I could find him in the afterlife. I miss him so much and whether it is today or tomorrow I fear that suicide will eventually be my last decision on earth. I can’t find peace within this pain and although it is selfish, I cannot seem to find any other way out.
I am the Assistant for a bunch of really educated, smart people. I feel so inferior around them and don’t talk too much in case I say something stupid. I have relationship problems and cry most nights. I find it hard just to make ends meet and wonder when I will be able to have some fun. Everything’s an effort for me.
To Bella:
I would hope you consider getting into therapy to discuss your framing and perspectives to see if you can change things for the better. I sense you have options and hope you pursue them. I hear things are an effort, just make positive and productive one!!!
By the way, if these people you work for are so educated and smart, they would be sympathetic, sensitive, and supportive if you would take the risk to be open about how you feel, unless they just have brains and no social or empathetic skills. Then they are just smart asses. Sorry to be judgmental without much to go on, but, just my opinion.
therapyfirst
I saw a patient recently who had a family member commit suicide in the home with others inside, including the patient. I didn’t have easy answers how to help this person process how to move forward, but I will say here, this is why there is nothing but pain, anguish, heartache, anger, frustration, and sadness that is left behind from a death by suicide. And, to do it in the presence of others nearby is, in my humble but experienced position, is not just selfish, but I feel at least a bit cruel, at least how I see it per this incident. I share this here just to hopefully empower those who have commented, as well as those who read but are silent to the thread here, there has to be other options to the future that can be productive and positive for each and all who are in pain.
At the end of the day, not many people can do my job, not that I am great and omnipotent, but try to console and motivate those who deal with these kind of experiences somewhat day in and out and I guess you are, at the very least, lucky to handle this type of work.
Hey, Dr Grohol, how about a post about mental health burn out, both for educational and support to providers?
therapyfirst
I find it a very disconcerting, and highly unprofessional that you actually come on a site discussing suicide, and discuss a patient. This is neither ethical or appropriate, and with the knowledge that everything you say online stays there forever I would be very concerned,
I don’t know my family, was never adopted and am left feeling pointless lonesome pain much of the time. I’m not the marrying kind. Have walked streets and sat in corners for hours. Had empty sex or worse felt brief moments of (whatever you’d call it). Never feel quite human. Am “bipolar”. After finding my mother was employed when she had me (out of wedlock of course) I hated her for years. You probably don’t care either. I wish I could care less and
really wish an IUD had stopped this.
How about this scenario: My brother is almost 60. He has a history of mental illness (bipolar and BPD) and is a raging alcoholic. He was doing OK until he left his wife (about 8 years ago) and our mom died (6 years ago). After our mom’s death, he started drinking (it had been several years since he had a drink but he still used/abused other drugs). Now, he has grand mal seizures from the alchol. He has lost everything and everyone he ever held dear – as well as his health. He is living on the streets, having burned the last family member who tried to help. He says he is ready to “check out”. How does one convince someone not to take their life when they truly are at the end of their rope and feel there is nothing to live for?