OK, I understand that a suicide attempt is not a suicide attempt if the end desire is not death, but stick with me here, I have a point.
Believe it or not, I get a lot of searches on this site by people searching for ways to attempt suicide and not die (their words). And while many people may find this unbelievable, I don’t actually think it’s all that uncommon. I think many people make suicide attempts that are less about death and more about screaming for help.
The World of Treating a Mental Illness
In a perfect world, as soon as a person saw the symptoms of a mental illness, he would see a doctor, who would refer him to a psychiatrist for an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. In a perfect world, this would all happen very quickly and the patient would go from crazy to sane in a matter of weeks. In a perfect world, that treatment would work forever and the person with the mental illness would lead a happy life and never look back.
Does Anyone Think We Live in a Perfect World?
No. Instead we live in a world where people ignore their mental illness symptoms for months, or even years, get incorrect diagnoses and ineffectual help. This is no one’s fault, necessarily, it’s just that even when everyone does the very best they can, not everyone gets better in a timely fashion. Moreover, when treatment does work, it doesn’t mean that it will last forever. No, more likely there will be episodes of mental illness in the future requiring new or augmented treatment that may take months to be resolved.
Desperation Leads to Suicide Attempts
And the problem lies in the group of people who aren’t being successfully treated. For whatever reason, these people with mental illness are being treated but the treatment just isn’t effective.
And when this happens, I can attest from experience, you would beg anyone and everyone for help if you thought it would lead to effective treatment. You become beyond desperate.
It feels like you’re screaming and crying and praying and sobbing and wailing no one is paying attention. It feels like no matter what you tell your doctor they don’t “get it” because they just aren’t helping you.
And again, in most cases it’s not that the doctors aren’t trying, it’s just that they’re failing.
But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like no one is listening to you. It feels like no one is taking you seriously. It feels like if only they understood how much pain I’m in, they would help me.
And so you want to make them understand your pain. You want to make them take you seriously. You want to attempt suicide. I suspect nothing gets people’s attention quite like thinking you’re about to die.
When Is a Suicide Attempt Not a Suicide Attempt?
And these suicide attempts are fundamentally the same as any other suicide attempt – the people committing them really do want to end their suffering and they really are risking their own lives. These suicide attempts mean the same thing: Help me; I’m in pain and I don’t know how to get out of it.
And don’t mistake this type of suicide attempt for some kind of manipulation either. It’s not. It’s just trying to up the amperage on a scream so that someone will help you out of the pain that is trying to kill you. Because you don’t want to die. You just want the pain to stop.
Attempting Suicide Won’t Help You
But the trouble is if you were in your right mind, you would probably realize that a suicide attempt would not help your cause. This is because the doctors are likely doing all they can already and you spending time in an emergency room isn’t going to change what they are able to do. In fact, it may lessen the chances that a doctor will be able to help you due to whatever injuries you sustain (like to your kidneys and liver) when you attempt suicide.
So don’t do it. Don’t attempt suicide in a bid to get help. It’s not going to work.
What to Do Instead of Attempting Suicide
Instead of planning a suicide attempt that you hope won’t work, try getting help, that might. For example, tell your doctor that you’re thinking of attempting suicide. Many people don’t do this for fear they will be “locked up” but what do you think is going to happen if you actually do attempt suicide? Talking about suicide is infinitely better than actually doing it. Tell your doctor about the desperation you are feeling. Tell your doctor what you feel that desperation is leading you to. Make it very clear that you need your disorder to be taken as seriously as a goddamned heart attack. Maybe that means new meds. Maybe that means referral to another doctor. Maybe that means considering other options. Whatever it means, it means something and it means something now.
And then you will just have to accept that help takes time. Your treatment isn’t going to be instantaneous. You likely aren’t going to wake up tomorrow pain-free. That pain that you’re in is likely to hang around for quite some time. You have to wait it out. It’s not pleasant, it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.
So I absolutely understand the desperation that would lead you to a suicide attempt. I absolutely understand why you would want to be on death’s door. I absolutely understand why you feel like people aren’t taking you seriously.
But a suicide attempt isn’t going to get you what you want. Instead, keep going to real people who can really help you. And if you can’t do that, then admit yourself to a hospital instead of attempting suicide. Because the damage of an attempted suicide is going to make your pain worse, not better.
Genuinely thank you for this article. I’ve been having thoughts like this, even though I didn’t plan on actually doing it, and I felt ashamed. I’m in the same situation you described, been doing some type of therapy for nearly 2 years and it hasn’t worked. I appreciate you giving advice of what else to do. I’m working on getting medication and will tell my therapist/psychiatrist about these thoughts so they can advise and find something that works. I feel less desperate after reading this, it gave me some kind of hope that my life isn’t over yet and it can still get better.
Hi Zan,
I’m so glad you found the piece useful and hopeful. It absolutely can get better. Many of us are living proof of that.
Thank you for your kind comment.
— Natasha Tracy
what’s wrong with me? if i don’t get my own way i’ll have a tantrum that could easily be mistaken as a mental breakdown. i’m genuinely considering killing myself because i can’t take a day off school which just reminds me of how much my life sucks shit. everytime a small thing bothers me and i’ve had a shitey day i end up making it so much worse than it is and i cry and scream and I completely zone out and it’s like i’m falling into a portal and no one will help me. my parents don’t pay any attention to me when i have a breakdown unless i do something huge. For example: i was having a breakdown and i was being already very loud. i ended up with a huge kitchen knife to my wrist and told my mum “i want to cut myself but none of you care”. thats the only time i get attention during a breakdown. And honestly theyre a huge tantrum. i don’t believe that because i feel like im dying and going insane while having one but i get louded because i want help and i do things like this because i want help. however, i feel like this maybe once every 2-3 months. every other day i’m fine. Not expecting an answer just helps to talk i guess.
I have anxiety and depression, i’m almost finished with high school and I’m 14 years old. I need to change school but I don’t know how to talk to my parents about it because I am sure they won’t understand. I go see a therapist once every 2 weeks but it really doesn’t help me. I feel stuck because I don’t see any other options but I don’t want to die but I don’t want to live either. 12 year old me would of probably already done it if they were in my position today. I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do. It seems like I can’t talk to anyone and that there is nothing that I can do because I don’t want to kill myself but I don’t want to live this life. I feel lost and scared because it seems that there is nothing I can do to help myself and I just feel completely numb.
ever since my parents broke up which was 8 years ago i dont feel the same. Im always bullied in school not physically but mentally. I tried talking with adults but they just dont understand. I have no friends because im a very closed person. every night i cry myself to sleep. i tried comiting suicide many times. but everytime i think of my family. but i feel like they dont care about me. My sister is always the better one. ive never been anyones first choice… actually ive never been anyones choice at all. i just dont know what to do. i feel like im only annoying everyone thats why if i ever start talking with a person it doesnt last for too long. Now i started living in a different country with my mom and my stepdad. but i have no one to talk to. and i met this boy. we started datng 2 weeks ago, but even when he says everything is okay and he likes me, my anxieties and overthinking makes me think that im not good enough cause he is so beautifull and he has such an amazing personality and im ugly and im always sad i feel like im a bad choice for him and that makes me more sad. i went to doctors when i was living with my dad and he showed the doctors my scars. but they say that everything is ok with me i just do it because cutting yourself is “cool”. but no i do it because i dont know any other way to compete with the pain inside my heart. i just want to be understood and not taken as a joke. i dont know how much i can take the pain cause it feels that with everyday i get more and more sad and suicidal. ive already written a suicide letter to my family. and bought a rope. but everytime i try to kill myself i just cant. cause i try to imagine what would i do if someone from my family did this. But at the same time i dont know what to do with the pain inside my soul. i feel like im screaming in a room full of people but no one hears me. i feel like my screams for help are useless just as im useless. people always tell me to cheer up but i cant because i dont even know why im sad.
I’m 14 and I don’t know wtf I’m doing honeslty. My dad was shot to death by my uncle in Feb. ever since then life’s been shit. My mom and dad were never together so she lives 45 mins away from where I used to. She lives in a very small town with literally only 2 stop signs, where as my dad lived in a big city. All the people I care about are in that city other than my mom and brother. I have two sisters there that have a different mom and I hardly see them anymore and all my friends as well as my ex step siblings and most of my dad’s side of the family live there and I hardly see any of them. my mom refuses to move there. Even if she did decide to move she said it’s more likely we move to Florida which is 17 hours away. Its almost like it’s in spite of me. Anyway I feel completely fucking trapped and I can’t do anything about it I’ve tried everything I know how to without completely ruining my relationship with my mom. Lately it seems suicide is the only way out. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is bc I don’t wanna be selfish or set that example for my younger siblings.
Hi Winter,
I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you must be going through. I can understand how the upheaval of what you are experiencing may seem impossible. When you’re 14, you just don’t have control over many of life’s decisions.
What I can tell you, though, is that suicide is not the answer. You will get through this situation — either by making new friends or finding new supports or finding new ways of dealing with things. This situation will get better. Your death is forever. This situation is temporary. I know it’s hard to see four years down the road but believe me, four years down the road this situation will look very different. And by then many amazing things may happen. You might fall in love. You might go on the road trip of a lifetime. You might get accepted to the college of your dreams.
My point is, you don’t want to miss all of that. While I know the present moment in time may be extremely painful and hard for you, it won’t last forever.
While you’re working out life’s functional challenges, please make sure you are getting help in dealing with your dad’s death. Therapy can help so much. In therapy, you can be honest about all your challenges and a therapist may have great ideas for how to help.
In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out. This is the National Suicide Lifeline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
They are trained and they can help you through this. You don’t have to be suicidal to call but you absolutely should call if you feel like you may hurt yourself.
You can do this.
– Natasha Tracy
I hate the fact that when I look at this there are so many people talking about themselves before offering help to others as an alternative to wanting to self harm or commit suicide to raise awareness of the problem when im pretty sure a lot of people here would be the best people to meet up and talk with inna completely non judgemental and constructive talk about anything, for what I go through is having no one, all I want is embarrassingly to me, love and affection or simply loyalty, in a way no matter what friends you have you will only have the one or two or so that actually understand you, I have more desire to help people I know are feeling like me and don’t
want to live the way their living but feel trapped for the limitations we put on ourselves that stop us from doing the things that actually will guarantee to help us in the eyes of professionals and it would be true if only we did actually not feel full of frustration/anxiety/fear of judgement/of what to say, why the fuck are we not all coming together and helping each other personally? All I want out pf life is to get better I say but do you know what makes !e feel like I would be the most happiest from doing? It’s helping those that are similar to myself, if we could help each other like the way we want help ourselves from people wouldn’t that make us feel completely different about ourselves by doing good we willfully wish to give unconditionally so long as we are not being abused in doing so? and also build a relationship stronger than that of what people deem close for a pure understanding and desire to help someone in the same situation as you are?
My story is fucking brutal and that is not in comparison to any one else that’s purely my word for it and I feel as though I’m losing my grip on reality and just when I get in with people that I can talk to/bare to be around due to the positive effect it has on me and the fact they don’t expect me to talk much but don’t know a thing about what I go through it makes me feel I can get it back but because of my ffriends lack of understanding that there is something seriously wrong, that inability to speak and the extreme worry of the worst outcome is why I feel helpless
, I have had a child at 20 with a complete psychopath and she is using him against me, she even went to the length of waking him up from a sleep at night time after we stopped arguing to make me seem like I caused her to do something so wrong as that then ran away into the street screaming to make me look as though I was doing something wrong and in a moment of madness and fear for my son I put my arm around my son and she the moment she physically pulled him away from me I snapped and took no more of her twisted guilt tripping and argument provoking actions and now I can’t see my son, I am paranoid from cannabis which I started using heavily since I was about 14 (heavily as in using other people to get me high) as a way of feeling good about my life and thinking it was the mature and best thing I could do giving me a mature feeling that gave me a confidence that others didn’t seem to
possess apart from people o thought were the mature cool people who would always make it in life simply because of their personality but disregarding the damage weed would do at that age from being told it’s only a plant and hardly a drug and though it helped I still had a bad environment at home with my mum, she was extremely controlling, she never hit me but always enforced fear into my life from a young age with verbal abuse and threats rather than putting logic before me to make my own decision which made me fearful in secondary school. The best thinf I had in my childhood was my grandmother and my no longer step-dad, having more childish mentality due to my mother’s upbringing
I grew up knowing the bare minimum about being social and the only form of social interaction I had was when I got high, was with my grandmother who was honestly cool as fuck with me but not so much my mum, she was controlled and had to do a lot for my grandmother as she was an alcoholic when she was looking after my mum but she made up for it with me, I somehow don’t think my mum liked this due to her personal relationship with me and because od her constant shouting I couldn’t listen to her for trying to anticipate whether she is going to start on me whilst she was talking sternly fear took over and that was it and because I couldnt listen she hated it and had her own opinion of me whilst mine was she just refused to try to speak normally to me no !atter how !much I tried to tell her I can’t take how she treats me, I couldnt do anything a child should have been allowed to do I was always on a leash so the person I turned to and felt closest to was my grandmother as she was !ore understanding somewhat, she at least listened, them I had my step-dad who was the best thinf I ever had for not having a dad (being a heroin addict) he made me feel involved in the world in a way I could never have imagined, he built me up and gave me confidence, then things got worse with him and my mum and he began to have less time and I grew up in the middle of constantly seeing degradation of my mum doing it to herself and seeing hpw horrible a person my step-dad was for hitting or verbally abusing my mum in front of me whilst maintaining he was a good dad to me I don’t know what to think of feel, from then all I’ve done is look for guidance
, I used to have to go to my grandmother’s for comfort but couldn’t tell her what happened so I kept it to !myself for how involved she would have became and I didn’t want that, well skipping all the bullying and bs I got from school after my step-dad ledt and it was just me and my mum in the house she sat in her room never talking to me unless the t was for something and I thought this was normal, now I lack massive social skills, well I said I did but when I get adrenaline and people encourage me to talk I can and it feels good but people have started that up and fucked off never wanting to speak of anything like that again and I drifted away from people for years, isolating myself and smoking weed daily I began speaking to a girl i had slight feelings for in school but I treated like shit at times for how embarrassed I was to show her I cared but after years of not speaking to her it made me feel horrible and nasty as fuck as I wouldn’t have liked it done to me but I was 15 and we had sex etc. All I knew about sex was it was good no feelings but when I slept with her I has feelings she was 14 and we were both consenting and very shy but intimate and afterwards out of not knowinf how to deal with it emotionally and do something positive with it for lack of communication and healthy socialising it became awkward for me to talk to her even though she liked me, so we argued and never spoke again until I was 19, and we met up and had sex for the first time (during the time we never spoke I began heavily using but not because of her all I did with mt mum after years of refusing to take her shit anymore all we did was argue and I couldn’t have friends or anything over and me being socially awkward I wasn’t the greatest being outside with new people and I think smoking so much exacerbated this even more so it became a really irrational but unavoidable fear, and I resented my mum for this whilst maintaining the belief she didn’t know what she was doing but the lack of understanding and refusal to hear me out made it worse and it became volatile and that was just a bit of the bit that was in between) we had sex for the first time at 19 on the first night after I told her I would rather we didn’t and one thing led to another although she initiated it, being severely depressed and feeling completely hopeless I didn’t want to have something that was based on lust and fear of a relationship based on sex but out of desperation for the affection I got from her I felt secure without thinking about anything and being over infatuated with the fact I had no one to someone who had such feelings for me I regained !massive faith that night and decided to see how it would go, after a while of decent times within about 6 month we (now stupidly on my part although she asked) decided to try for a baby, the most treasured thing I ever hoped to do it was my absolute dream above money above anything you could possibly imagine my own son I could teach the rights and wrongs of the world to ensure he never experiences what I had giving him unconditional love and guidance in the most unjudgemental and understanding way possible fighting the edge of my faults of upbringing through him would make up for everything I fucked up with in life devotinf my life to him and him only having him to come home to to look after and care and socialise with also giving me more confidence to go out and face the world as I have extreme anxiety also, this experience had been ruined through my now cow of an ex who is now taking MDMA having drug dealers kick in her dopr for money for her boyfriend that is using her and cheating whilsr Mt son is in the house at only a year old all because she couldn’t understand how I felt amd her selfish decisions/thoughtless across disproving what I felt from the beginning was clearly a delusion I left myself regretting and hating myself for being so stupid in doing but before my child was born my gran died and the girl I was with made things better and without her or anyone else that was there (her aunt/my now auntie d) and hpbefore my gran my grandad and these were the first deaths I’d ever experienced in my life so I didn’t know how to process it but instead blocked it out without grieving and now I fucking hate myself for how littoe I’ve thought about her for fear of how it will break me at a time when I need to be strong for my son but all I have dealt with in the course of the relationship was manipulation and lies from both her and her mother, feeling I haven’t fully grown up but am trying I feel extremely hurted by this and my auto reaction is to act like it did fuck all and take it like a man and let it fuel me but it’s all too much when I am Contemplating all of this shit at the same time. I don’t feel me telling people my story and asking for help is what I want to do but rather possibly a way to vent this shit I’m holding in with somewhat hope someone will offer me help I’m the form of a friend and the word friend is daunting to me but I feel if someone feels the same!e way I do about their life they will understand the level of ease we may have in talking and the lack of pressure. All I want is love I can give and get to get me back on track and the person that helps !e out will be my utmost closest and only asset I have in life apart from my son, I a! Considering doing too much to myself to leave my son with such a state of a mother with no guidance but it’s genuinely just too hard I’ve even considered heroim like my dad has done and I fucking despise the thought to the core but I can see where he came from, it’s scary when you begin to realise such shit through bad experiences you learn to relate to people better through it though and cutting myself seemed like an easy alternative to stress build up and lack of anyone caring without it drawing any attention from social workers but I have no other option to use as an outlet and i can’t explain scars on my arm if the wrong people see them or to myself with pride or to my son and I also can’t take drugs as I will only be doing what my dad done any other drug I take will start something I do not wish to do but I am getting involved in valium and considering other drugs then stopping the thoughts completely for my son what I’m afraid of is the pressure of having N other options I feel I may do something more so than cutting safely or taking safe overdoses, if I’m doing it I want my son to know his mother is evil and the suffering she has causes me and damage she will do to him will be unavoidable unless he knows the reason why I had taken the decision to end my life as she already has a grip on him and gives zero fucks about nothing but attention and what’s between her legs.
I just want someone who cares enough to tell me their story and in turn willfully listen to mine and create a family like bond where no other person can seemingly come between, undying loyalty, open to criticism as I would be to our flawed personalities with the understanding as to why they are like such bettering our closeness, I am harmless to anyone but myself and I believe love and understanding is the best form of antidepressant and having this in life mat inspire me or others to help even more, male of female I so not care I just want a trustworthy caring individual who is on the same level as me and gets a warm feeling when they think about having a friendship or relationship with someone who cares not about anything to do with insecurities. I am willing to prove who I am if anyone has the same values and ideology as me, as the relationship taught me it is socialising that helps any situation, but only with the right understanding people. I now have no one but am more willing to help than be helped unless someone physically reaches out to me I don’t know how I will feel so being understanding is definitely the biggest trait I need in someone who would attempt to help. Please people start helping each other and we will begin to feel better about ourselves, easier so with people such as ourselves, please hear me out in what I say a well placed replied could be the answer to both you, mine and everyone else’s problems, think about it no one thinks to help each other only ourselves for how we feel. I live in Glasgow but I don’t care if your genuine in need of help with the idea that you don’t want to feel like you need to lie to people about yourself or to get people to care speak to me I don’t know what to say but trust me I’m not too far gone but I will be if I can’t find caring person in this world when we gave everything to arrange and help fix these things, I hope but I doubt people will give a fk but if it’s a possibility I’m fking taking it because nothinf but goodness can come from this and it’s worth typing so long for if it alpt least hits home to someone.. please hear this out if you feel similar and if you do don’t expect to feel shy as I have mutism and can’t speak sometimes, if I had the confidence you didn’t care and expected that it would more so go away. I just need somethinf I can feel good about myself for doing to help someone. Do not be shy, if you don’t ask you’ll never know..
Hello, My name is Angela. I’m 16 years old and I’ve had a rough life. I’ve been almost kidnapped, had guns pointed at me at one point in my life, and faced years of verbal abuse from my father. I’ve never had a home for more than a year in my life nor lived in just one place or even country. I’ve been in a homeless shelter countless of times. My mom has always been trying to take care of me and raise me but, she has more emotional issues than me and probably becoming an alcoholic. At this point, I don’t think even my own mother cares about me… No one in her family wants her near, not even my brothers. She’s only around me because I’m the youngest and have no one else. I think she’s tired of me already because she’s starting to verbally abuse me as well and trying traumatize me with threatening to abandon me.
I don’t have any family. I also already used up all the help from family friends near me. All I’ve ever wanted was to have a home with a normal family. I have nothing left in this world I just want to die but, I’m too much of a coward to commit suicide. I can no longer cry, I feel empty. I don’t no if anyone can help me.
I’m 17, turning 18 in two months. I’ve suffered from anxiety since I was 12, and depression since I was 14. My mom has bipolar depression and OCD, and suffered from a meltdown over a year ago that she is still recovering from. Ever since then, my mom’s been really out of it, and hasn’t been herself, and my dad’s been angry and stressed all the time. I’m a clumsy, awkward, forgetful person by nature, and whenever I make the smallest mistake or forget to do something, my dad screams at me and treats me like I’m nothing but a disappointment and a burden. Some days are better than others. Sometimes, my mom seems to be feeling a bit better, and my dad is in a good mood. And whenever it’s like that, I really do love my dad. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just going through a lot with all this. And I have maladaptive daydreaming, which I kinda use as a coping mechanism, I guess. It helps. But every now and then, when my dad does yell at me and treat me like I’m stupid, or my mom’s acting differently again, even my maladaptive daydreaming isn’t enough to keep me from feeling absolutely miserable and upset and feeling like it’s all somehow my fault.
My parents don’t know I feel like this. I just don’t want to tell them because I don’t want to be yet another burden for them to deal with. They’ve already got enough to worry about. And anyways, whenever I do try to talk about my feelings, my dad yells at me. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to turn to or talk to about this. I kind of want to attempt suicide so that my dad will stop yelling at me and take me seriously, and so that I can actually get some help with this. I’m not going to, of course. I’d never do something like that. But the thought is always there when things get bad. I don’t know what to do.
My name is Karen. Im 18 turning 19 in a few months. Your situation is almost identical. My mom doesnt have any sickness or whatever though. And in my case, she’s the one who yells at me the most for not being helpful to her. I still dont have the courage to seek help from a doctor. My parents know that im a person with suicidal thoughts when things just dont go right. But i know for sure that if i went to a doctor for help regarding my issues, they will only get mad at me. That is the thing that prevents me from asking for help from a professional. Please tell me if you have found any solution with your case. I’d like to get over this because i cant shed anymore tears as ive already used them up almost every night.
My name is Cass and I’m 12 years old. Almost thirteen. I’ve suffered from depression and chronic anxiety for almost three years and it’s only getting worse. I’m on medication that doesn’t help me, and i self harm. My therapist does nothing. I’m so tired of life and i honestly just want it all to be over, but i don’t want to die… I don’t know what to do
Hi Cass,
I’m so sorry you’re going through that, it sounds really hard. Please know that it does get better. I know it may not seem like it right now, but it can and it does. When I was 12 I had similar issues but there are ways through them.
What you need to do is to reach out to someone else and be honest about what you are going through. You need to reach out and tell someone else exactly what you wrote in that comment.
I believe this is the helpline number for your country:
Talk to someone at 0800-055555 or chat to us on our Online Counselling Service.
To logon to their online service, you can go to their website: http://www.childlinesa.org.za/index.php/teens-mainmenu-3
Please, these people deal with kids and teens all the time. They can help you where you are today. You do not need to suffer. You do not need to die. You just need more help.
– Natasha Tracy
I’m just tired. I don’t want to start over and go through life all over again. I want my husband to suffer. I want him to think it’s his fault. I just want to be dead. I worry what would happen to my animals, and i’d miss them. I know my parents will be devastated and they’ve already told me if i died they’d kill themselves. See i have a great background in tons of manipulation and now that i’ve realized it and how much of it there is, i just want escape. I can’t live like this anymore. I don’t want to die, though, but I want to be dead.
The other day I told my therapist that I had had suicidal thoughts again. He asked if I had a specific plan. I said no, not really, but I was surprised I wasn’t thinking using a medication overdose as the plan, because I think of myself as a pain wus and that’s the least painful method I could think of. I told him the idea that came to mind was running out in the middle if a busy road and getting hit by a car. He asked me if I liked that idea because then it might seem like it was also the driver’s fault, and not just mine. This startled me, because I didn’t want to hurt someone else, and I hadn’t thought that far ahead. No, all I had been thinking was I wanted to use a method that would be witnessed by a lot of people, that would demonstrate a monstrous cry for help that might increase the awareness of this kind of pain because I it made me angry that so many people are so naive about it. I think it’s interesting that another commentator above mentioned that if you want attention, then try getting cancer. I’ve thought the exact same thing, because cancer is the one that gets the pity and the support, even when the type is very treatable. I think it’s awful that we would be envious of a cancer diagnosis, but there it is. Mental illness is lethal, too, if untreated or exacerbated, but many people don’t know this until it’s too late. Thank you for this article!
Hi my name is Carissa and I am 13 and I am on the edge. I have to move for the 12th time and I am losing my dog for 2 months as well as my dad. I have been sent to the consulers office multiple times for cutting and I cry myself to sleep and only get 4 hours of sleep every night. I get help but I hate my consuler. My friends love me but other people hate me and despise me I just wish I could disappear in the blink of an eye.
Hi Carissa. My name’s Nicola. I’m 23. I wanted to reply to your comment because it seems to me you were in a huge, huge amount of pain at the time you wrote it. How are you doing now?
It is so hard when you don’t like / feel comfortable with your counsellor. Having a counsellor who you can actually connect with is so much better. I’ve had that problem before. Luckily I found my current counsellor, who is wonderful and can understand me better.
That feeling where you just want to cry so often is really terrible. I know it too. I wish I could make it better for you. I hope you find a way to make life more liveable for you – and that people help you to do this.
You deserve to live a life which has happiness and where pain becomes a smaller part, and becomes a part of life that exists but doesn’t overwhelm you so horribly. You deserve that sort of good life because you’re a previous human being, and as a human you fundamentally deserve good things. You deserve love rather than hate from the people around you (although I know that doesn’t change the pain of how it feels).. You are valuable and worthy.
I want to send warmth and a very heartfelt wish for your wellness / okayness/ happiness, over this Internet message/comment.
You are worthwhile.
Hello, it’s Nick from a few years ago which I wrote…
“Nick – July 2, 2013
I am only 17, doing really well at school (so close to getting into Oxford University), have a lovely family and amazing girlfriend buy since my Dad took his own life last year, things just seem to get so bad for me. Constant arguments in my relationship and at home, and with my Dad’s up and coming birthday things are just too much. I think about suicide so much that it has just become normal and I kind of get comfort from it. I want to escape the stresses I am facing everyday of my life and be with my Dad and go the same way he did.”
I wrote this in 2013 due to the reasons mentioned above, since then I have come so far and do not even think about the things I used to think about anymore! Thanks to the advice here, you are truly saving lives!:)
For the people still using this blog and are feeling the same things I felt, I promise you, persist and keeping fighting! Things will always get better and you are truly worth something :)
Hope this continues to help you all!
Nick x
my name is sabrina i am 12 and i want to kill myself because my dad always hits me when he is drunk he yells at me and i dont do anything and when i forget something he will yell at me or hit me and i am sick of it and i just want to leave also my mom is in jail so she cant help me and i just want to die
Hi Sabrina,
I’m so sorry you are in this position. It is not fair. It is not right. And I know it must hurt you terribly.
But the way out _isn’t_ suicide — it’s reaching out for help. Believe it or not, many, many people want to help you get out of that situation.
Please go here and call their number as soon as you can: https://www.childhelp.org/hotline/ 1-800-4-A-Child
You have a whole life to live and it can be great, but you just have to reach out for help today to get out of the bad situation you, through no fault of your own, are in.
Please, please know that you are not alone. Call the number.
– Natasha Tracy
Thanks for listening.
You silly person. I did just that …I tried to kill myself and survived ..didn’t help me or anybody else. No one will ever ever trust you again. It’s mental illness…no one understand “crazy” they dodge you and want nothing to do with you. You want to make people feel sorry for you? Get cancer …I have been where you are get counceling get a good doctor
i will listen to you i will be your friend i am only 12 years old but i understand i wanted to commit suicide once but then i thought i have my whole life ahead of me so i don’t think that anymore thanks to getting help. so if your a girl that needs help or a boy call the hotlines of suicide help
i don’t think any of you should commit suicide its not worth it think on the positive side if something bad is happening pack up and leave don’t give up your life if someone else is treating you like shit if you need this to end get help and this is the number to call 1-800-suicide call them and they will help you and get you out of that situation and get you to a better loving family.
I don’t know what to do anymore. I was in a serious relationship, for multiple years. I asked him to marry me. He said yes, and we were happy. He broke up with me three days later, after a small, nothing fight. I was indeed acting crazy, and didnt know what i wanted to accomplish. He left me that night..He doesnt talk to me anymore, hasnt for at least 5 months. Not even sure if he hates me. He was my bestfriend and the love of my life. I couldn’t get him to change his mind, and I still love him after everything. I still love him so much. I hate that everyone tell me to just get over him. It’s not that easy. Its really not easy. i tried so many times to hate him, despise him, blame him. Nothing. I blame myself so much for the whole relationship ending, I thought he loved me. He claims he loved me so much, even when he said goodbye. WTF, if you love me…come back. I dont know what to do to get his attention back. maybe nothing. But if i cant be with him….how can i be living. I need him, he was my life. and now…I feel like I’m breaking apart, all i want is to see him, hug, or talk to him. I keep contemplating suicide, I just don’t feel like my life is worth living anymore. I’m never happy. i’m constantly guilty. I want to leave. The pain is intense every day. The depression sickening. nothing is filling it, I just want Jason to come back to me. But i know he won’t. And knowing that seems to be killing me slowly everyday.
My dad always scolds me whenever i discuss anything with him, if its not according to him he shouts on me and then start scolding me.. I feel like i am good for no one.. I feel like trash..i dont want to end my life but end everything that is happening with me..i am very very emotional about my dad but for him only my brother matters..i cant speak my way in front of him..i am tired of leading dis kind of life
Im 17 and i live in Mumbai. i have been going through severe depression cause my mother and everyone around always blame me for everything wrong in their life. im never loved or given any importance rather treated like a dustbin in which shit is thrown everyday. im just done taking so much bullshit. i want to get out of this hell hole but i have no way out. my family is very rich but very poor when it comes to respect and feelings. i have been thinking about suiciding since i was 15 but i was to scared to hurt myself. i know many people call it a move of a coward but put yourself in my shoes. its easy to give opinions when your not going to this kind of situation. its vey hard for me to cope up with it. i’ve been trying for years but no one wants to listen. just suggest me a way to end my misery. i just dont want to feel like this ever again, i feel so worthless it scares me even more.
hey..i dont know ur name but even i’m going through the same situation maybe even worst that urs….u can contact me n we can find a solution together ….. i too wanna give up on my life but ..wanna live it too..i am 16 yrs old…. 1 yr younger than u …if u want u can discuss ur problem with me on gmail n i’ll try finding a solution to it..maybe ur situation can help mine too….Thank You
I really feel like not being alive at this moment. But I have a little one. She’s 2. I can’t leave her. She still needs me.
I have such a crappy destiny..nothing is left in my life.I loving a boy from 4years..everytime whenever things starts going on my way, my parents caught us..then they torchures me..this time also happened the same..its just 15 days since we started talking again and they came to knew about the same..they abused that guy and that bloody ass said that its my mistake not his..just because to protect his image in his family, he sent screenshots of chats to his family..i lost from both the side..that boy is being so selfish..even i lost trust of my parents..Life is nothing but a shit
Had spoiled life for that boy..but he doesnt cares anymore..parents only knows how to torchure me..
Fully fed up
wanna die..
:'(
My dad treats me n my mom like crap and treates his mother like goddess and my brothers like kings
Why ??
I wanna die as soon as possible ?
I literally hate him
I want him to exit my life
Fight him n leave the house. If he treats u n ur mom like crap, he is not worth it. Think about it, Are u wanting to leave ur life just because of a person like ur dad. U dont want really want to end ur life but u want to end ur pains
I don’t know why but every single mistake I make I am stupid or dump or don’t have common sense I’m tired of people telling I’m dump or stupid pull my hair bully I’m tired I just can’t do it anymore I really want to die but I am a Christian and I try not to think of it but it is really hard because I really don’t want to die but i wanna die
im so tired of feeling like my family hates me and my life is falling apart. its so hard to understand why my dad treats me like crap and treats my brother like its his only kid…it kind of hurts me to knoe my family disowned me like im a dog……im just tired of it
i feel the same way to like i would get hit with a belt because my aunt’s boyfriend gets drunk and he hates kids even though he as kids and i feel so alone and i feel like i just don’t matter you know
I really want to die bcz nobody undrstnd me even my best friend
you Don’t have to for the people who can’t understand you,As far u best friend they dont thing in the same way as you.the world is very large u can make real good friend and the one who can share your happiness, problems, emotional’s, anger, and understand you are the true best friend .. make friend live happily Nisha Garu :)
you can email me….ill understand.
what is ur problem first i will help u by anywhay
how do they not understand you like because what is your answer and i kinda know how you feel
What’s frustrating is when the doctor finally does listen when you talk, refers you to a psychiatrist because they just can’t get your meds right at family medicine and no place in the entire area has openings for adult patients. I have literally spent a week on the phone calling the entire list that my insurance company gave me, and it’s the same thing over and over again, “sorry, we don’t do that” or “sorry, but we’re not accepting any new patients” which is then followed by “call your insurance”. My family doctor didn’t want to give me a name because they’ve gotten in trouble with the insurances, they finally gave me one and that place doesn’t work with adults anymore either – and they’re one of the local hospitals. Yesterday I tried two clinics and the other hospital system and got the “sorry we’re not accepting any new patients” and when I finally snapped after the 24th doctor’s office told me that, and said so what you’re telling me is no one in this entire metro area is a) accepting new patients and b) able to help someone who’s medicines aren’t working. I just got told nope and to call my insurance company. It’s so frustrating. I even called my old practice two hours away and they wouldn’t see me because I’m out of the zip codes they service. My insurance company finally referred me to the local psychiatric hospital and they can’t do anything for me until June. So for the next two months, I have to suffer because literally no one can help me.
Idk y but I feel like I want/or because I am already partly suffering from depression? I don’t know if it’s because I want attention or something or like it’s just because it’s me giving myself a reason for why I have felt so shit(and I already have it?). But For the past 6 months or so maybe a bit more I’ve really found the idea of self-hatred/harm like I need to do it/interesting because well I just hate myself idk. Tbh I once setup to self harm which I have done once and also setup a time when I was gonna try to commit or well slit my wrists in a bath or soemthing, but at the time my parents came home a day early (or I can’t remeber soemthing happened thou) and so I couldn’t. Tbh I feel that my low confidence feels that I’m not even strong enough to even commit idk. But I find my life really boring as I have no friends only like people I might fb messgage here and there (never) and people I can’t even communicate to or even make a fkn conversation with, even with my 1 actual friend. Even thou I have an ok family, and nothing otragic has ever happened to me and there’s no reason for me to be depressed… Apart from my own failures which Arnt massive ‘failures’I guess, but you could call them personality faults idk or just my life is shit idk, I just feel so bored and done with my life. I feel low a lot too but im guessing that’s because of the no friends can’t communicate/atm starting uni/last year was year 12 and so I get stressed and cry over irrelevant things, I hate where I live/have lived, I had from being really good at school to being crap at it and the same socially as well and so I desperately want to finish it. I don’t feel close to any of my friends except maybe 1 who I can’t even communcate with because I’m socially restarded and so I can’t confide in her (let alone have a proper convo:/) and my parents I have a shit relationship with and tbh I’m jus tired of everyone. Also I fell that I can never get my thoughts straight either idk like now I’m struggling to express my feelings and now what I want to say in the first place and the inkt for me to express was to find. Similar feeling thing off depression websites and then just use that as a base/formatted structure to write this.(eg there’s a lot of stuff I want to say and that I’ve said but idk how to put it in or out it together:/).
I know I sound like a selfish did when is at that I feel like I eant it to make it easier idk or a part of me thinks I could just want it as an excuse for not feeling close to any of my friends, for wanting to just leave everything e.t.c. I know this all sounds stupid but I think about depression, self-harming, suicide or something along those lines at least once a day now, and at night and in the middle of the day I’m just crying for no particular reason unless I’m with soemthing where I always can hold my emotions and put on a fake smile and my fake personality and even when online with my online friends I do as well idk. But yeah idk just my life:/ #awks4me
Like I’m so lazy, retarded I don’t try, I’m still a virgin, I’m ugly(I’m the DUFF-shit movie btw ‘apparently’) I’m not clean at all, I can’t communicate in any given form, I’m just Awks to be around I have no real passions, I’m not even like an adult atm I can’t do shit, I don’t think through basic things like I’m some kind of blonde American teen or soemthing. I’m not intelligent in the slickest like I no nothing of general knowledge I cannot even do basic life esstinals like cooking, washing and using my Fuxking brain. I don’t even exercise I have no friends I retract from them all, I’m sure a lot of them don’t like me or relise that I’m a recluse or like are backing away from me, because of boring character, apart from that close friend who kinda talk except I always don’t talk to her cause odk I’m retarded, but at least she makes an effort and that y I love her for that where as I’m a Socially retarded cnt who also fakes smiles and make things awks (like being around me you’ll have more awkward moments than most will in their life). I always sleep in or don’t sleep at all and miss things and all the simple things never go my way and I always seem to fuck up the easiest of things. I’m basically a failure at life(look at my fkn atar for God sack) (I’ve also missed two uni essays due dates). My personality and a lot of what I have said to a lot of my friends have, well ale have been lies and big lies idk y but yeah, basically adding to that fake personality and also vying being overly nice and giving stuff, instead of having stuff in common. And so no actual real friends I guess, and I have lost a lot of friends that have actually been either my best of some of my best friends eg d-ford friends who I have completely neglected and just have nothing in common with, anymore and so again I’m awks with, and i also don’t even try to become friends with them or their mates, I don’t try! I get invited to partys and bars etc and I just say no and again become this sad nerdy recluse who doesn’t want to solize, I have even lost a lot of my online friends because they have moved on or I just simply avoid or don’t talk to them anymore like a dud. I’ve also given up that anythig that I was half good at like soccer, drumkit, piano, long distance running-exercise just reallt everything and it’s sad, I’m just a sad excuse atm.
Like in the words of Gary Jules “I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had, I find it hard to tell you”
It’s also wrrid because I also seem to look for negative side in things and like I always will try to feel shit, like I do it deliberately to make my self feel worse, for example I will always listen to sad music and then end up crying thinking about random shit and then always put myself down cause I’m crying for no reason etc. Il watch sad videos and stuff on depression and I will think yeah that’s me I’m the fkn sad cnt in that video, or il also relate sad videos or random shit to my life and somehow ‘negativfy’ it somehow, and tbh I don’t know what to do.
I have a friend who has depression and thinks he has bipolar (he used to take Klonopin and stopped because it was making him nauseous, without a doctor’s guidance) and he vaguely talked about suicide, very vaguely, but not so vague that I wasn’t worried.
I tried to contact him when I realised it was something that needed to be dealt with but I couldn’t get a hold of him so I contacted his family through FB, who I didn’t know (after calling suicide hotlines and they told me take ALL talk seriously and said I should do that) because I didn’t want to take a chance, and now he is angry at me because his aunt overreacted and wanted to call the cops on him. I told him i don’t control her behaviour.
I hope I still have his freindship. I was just worried I wold lose him. Sometimes he says things in one mood that he doesn’t even remember in the other mood (the normal one).
i used to try suicide most weeks and end up in hospital very ill but its the only place i feel safe i could kill my self easy i have split up with the love of my life and cant move on i love her so much with out her i am nothing i fell empty in side there is nothing left for me on this earth so i want to die and i will i have tried over dose tried cutting my wrists my liver is damaged and i have other problems i am in and out of hospital and doctors blood tests every 2 weeks with low iron levels i wish i could just die i had a small heart attack last sunday never told any doctors till 2 days later they wernt impressed never mind
I just want to die because no one understand me my own people only told me i am not good that also because i not went to see his mother when she not well. but he not thought that about my situation….. tel now what i do?? i just want to die really……..
Don’t die because if you do you can’t come back, but you will already die just by waiting. Might as well finish life first and explore teh world.
If you want to die call the suicide hotlines and they can give you other options you might not have thought about.
1 (800) 273-8255
this is where my oldest daughter is right now – I’m so glad I found your web site. She is ready to give up because they so far have been unable to help her get over her depression. Her doctors and I keep telling her that it will get better but she doesn’t believe us.
Please pray for her.
I actually initially thought this was going to be about the difficulties of obtaining treatment. When I lived in Virginia, my long history of diagnosis with bipolar got me treatment from the state despite their limited funding. The difference between being charged for my meds versus having them provided by the state at no cost was the hospitalization issue. If I had ever been hospitalized, my meds would have been provided at no cost. Because I had never been hospitalized, they got the cost reduced by a combination of the drug companies’ patient assistance programs and the state buying generic meds in bulk and re-selling them to people like me for what they paid.
There was a good clinic, and they took good care of me. However, the irony remains that if the doctor just put me in the hospital for a few days, I would have then permanently qualified for free meds. I was broke because of being disabled by my illness, and I wasn’t on disability because I was too disabled to do the paperwork.
It made me wonder how many other people around the country get disabled with a major mental illness and find they have to go to the length of getting a hospitalization on their record to get the powers that be to take their condition seriously and treat them.
And I’m wary of saying this, because I really get triggered by ignorant people who take harsh and miserly attitudes towards the “invisible” disabilities and the people unfortunate enough to have them. So even saying this I fear the guy who then says, “Oh, them people just pull this crap to get government to give ’em free stuff.”
tabby–it’s unfortunate that the therapist expressed herself badly (at minimum) or just didn’t “get it” (also possible).
There are many subtle sub-types of sub-types of the mood disorders. Sometimes questions that seem stupid to us as patients are actually the doctor trying to narrow down more information about the subtleties of that patient’s specific illness.
Most of the doctors I’ve dealt with recently are starting to realize that when they understand these little nuances, they can make a better “first guess” about what medications are most likely to work for you and least likely to accidentally make things worse.
“Attempter types” and “completer types” have differences in brain chemistry, and that affects how much of what the doctor prescribes. A lot of that prescribing is still more art than science, although it’s getting better, and there’s still a lot of trial and error in the process. And that’s just because everybody’s brain and biochemistry is individual and unique.
It’s possible the doctor was just clueless and insensitive. It’s also possible that she asked that clumsy question to try to figure out subtleties of your individual brain chemistry and decide which of several medicines to try you on to try to get you feeling better.
I have no suicide attempts and no hospitalizations. But when a new-to-me doc asks if I have a plan, I have to explain that I have a dozen plans, because my major fear about attempting suicide is not actually dying. I’m the kind of person who dies on the first attempt. It doesn’t make me a better or worse person, it just implies that my brain chemistry has subtle differences in the way it’s broken from people who attempt and survive, attempt and survive, and maybe then do end up completing.
Both kinds of patients are equally ill and equally in deadly danger from our illness, but (for example) people like me tend to have chronically very low serotonin levels when we’re not on meds to raise them. So while a bipolar person with a couple of attempts might be helped by a monotherapy of a really good mood stabilizer, putting me on a monotherapy mood stabilizer without addressing that low serotonin level explicitly is a recipe for a dead patient.
She handled it badly, and maybe she was clueless, too—I’m not making excuses for her. But it’s _possible_ that she was genuinely, if clumsily, trying to figure out what to prescribe to best help you feel better.
This is why when I talk with someone who is feeling suicidal, one of the things I feel an urgent need to communicate that I don’t merely care that they not die, but that it is vitally significant, important and relevant to me, as a compassionate human being, that they are living in so much pain.
I try hard to communicate that I know that their pain IS NOT OKAY. That it’s every bit as serious that they HURT so much as it is that their life is at risk.
When I was in some of my worst times, the thing that pushed me so much closer to suicide was feeling that neurotypical people’s desire to “help” me was fundamentally selfish. They didn’t want me to die not for MY sake, but so THEY wouldn’t feel bad about my death.
So the first thing I want to communicate to a suicidal or potentially suicidal peer is that I am every bit as concerned about their pain as I am about their life. Merely “helping” you stay alive isn’t enough. It’s not okay and some kind of medical victory for you to merely be alive but enduring excruciating pain. Medical victory doesn’t come until we are getting substantial periods of time where you not only don’t hurt, you’re able to enjoy life like neurotypical people do.
We haven’t “won” until we finally get to a situation where you wake up each morning and just feel calmly happy about being alive, just because you’re alive. That’s what neurotypical people “get”, and you and I deserve that quality of life, too.
Treatment is an _interim_ step to try to get as much time where you’re not hurting as possible while we figure this whole medical deal out for all of us.
What do I mean when I say we “deserve” it? We deserve for the medical and research establishment not to check the box marked “done” on research and treatment until we have the same garden-variety “life is sweet” experience that neurotypical people get as their birthright. That’s what “health” looks like. I get that we can’t just magically have an instant cure, right here, right now. However, on behalf of all of us, I demand that until we do have that cure, we’re not “done” yet. We’re not “done” when we merely feel okay enough that we quit inconveniencing the neurotypicals around us.
And, truly, that’s what our more neurotypical friends and loved ones want for us—they just frequently don’t understand the extent to which we don’t have that. In my saner and more charitable moments, I thank god that they DON’T understand what it’s like to be us.
I care, and other people who live with the same conditions and are getting more fortunate results from treatment care, deeply, that you hurt. It’s not okay with us that you hurt or aren’t able to enjoy life “just because.” You deserve better, we all do, and we care about ensuring that medicine keeps progressing until we all get there.
You getting relief for your pain–interim AND eventual permanent relief–MATTERS to the rest of us who also got the unfortunate dice roll of joining this fraternity.
A psychiatrist for whom performed a psych eval on me, this past week (well, actually.. she completed 97% of the psych eval BEFORE even meeting me for the first time.. info retrieved from my intake therapy assessment) asked me about suicide attempts and “did you really intend to actually die?”
Some, yes but overall no and I told her this.
What she “heard” was “no”, because she went on to “so, your real intent is not to actually die but maybe to just make everything stop, right? So, you really don’t want to commit suicide.”
When I am suicidal… suicide IS ALL I think about, sometimes for days and sometimes for weeks. I’ve even set dates for when I’d commit IF things, overall, did no start to improve… given the cliché of “if you died today, you may miss something wonderful tomorrow”… so, I mark a day on the calendar and then fight to keep moving until that date… when the date creeps up even closer.. I seem to go more “psychotic”.
Yet… I AM suicidal the entire time… anything can shake & cause me to act
Still… it comes around due to prolonged mental pain filled to the brim & stress and when you fight and fight to survive every 15 minutes at times… it’s pretty brutal.
I felt like the psychiatrist just wasn’t getting it… it’s not that I truly want to die, it’s that I want my life to end.
Hi Nick!!
i HEAR YOU! & I UNDERSTAND !!! your pain is around losing your dad & you are GRIEVING….grieving takes form in many ways & i would encourage you to seek out help & support to talk about your dad…..i am sure there is a lot of anger there still around you dad being gone & you may not know that consciously.
This is just my opinion however, i have been thru the grieving process myself a few times in the last few years….most recently my mom passed away suddenly last year :(
I encourage you to seek HELP…..because a lot of your anger/frustration with people around you is coming from inside you so it would help for you to understand that & then work it thru step by step…maybe even first with your doctor….or if you really need…go to your emergency at the hospital & they can always steer you in the right direction for help…….i know, i did that once myself :)
Also if you haven’t already….check out what Natasha has to say here in this blog about the “resources” she suggest as well …above:
“…But a suicide attempt isn’t going to get you what you want. Instead, keep going to real people who can really help you. And if you can’t do that, then admit yourself to a hospital instead of attempting suicide. Because the damage of an attempted suicide is going to make your pain worse, not better.”
“What to Do Instead of Attempting Suicide” …Nick please try to read as much of Natasha’s words to help you & the resources she provides above as well….to work thru these suicidal ideations…..
I know what you are talking about….i have to fight the urge a lot myself even still, however, i have found ways to give me coping skills….hard work, & perseverence & one day at a time (oh gosh sometimes one MINUTE at a time) to work thru whatever is making you feel so much pain <3
HUGS
Judie
I am only 17, doing really well at school (so close to getting into Oxford University), have a lovely family and amazing girlfriend buy since my Dad took his own life last year, things just seem to get so bad for me. Constant arguments in my relationship and at home, and with my Dad’s up and coming birthday things are just too much. I think abou suicide so much that it has just become normal and I kind of get comfort from it. I want to escape the stresses I am facing everyday of my life and be with my Dad and go the same way he did.
Hi Natasha, this is fantastic post and it really addresses the problem of a cry for help. Having read this I am going to change my ways and get the help I need, whatever it takes. You have given me hope. Thank you.
Love this site, I want it for myself only. I think it is important to say something about suicide and hope others will agree with me. I personally have attempted suicide with the full intention of dying. I had tried twice before and was unsuccessful. The third time was my time to go and be gone from this torture. I was very sad to wake up and find myself alive. I was very angry that someone found me collapsed in my own bed and called an ambulance. When I woke up I was shocked! Why couldn’t they leave me alone. I was again misdiagnosed and sent back to an abusive family with no meds and no help. So I faked being happy until I left home as an adult. Now, I’m a depressed, divorced mother of one who hates herself still. My child is married and I’m still living a depressed life and want to finally end it again. I’m on meds but I can fake being well too. Presently told doctor I was a fake and can’t get out of bed. Was not taken seriously and now the only, the ONLY thing that’s holding me here are my dogs. The youngest is 8 yrs old and I’m waiting for him to die so I can go too. My original note for here was to inform others that suicide should not be only understood to be a cry for help, but a real concrete decision to be found dead. That is it.
(Hey, we have the same name!)… Anyway, Susan, I know how you feel. I’m sorry that you really want to die. I have recently figured out that for me, this intense desire for suicide is really a desire to escape, not to die. I have been satisfying that escape desire in different plans and ideas of how to escape my life and/or this world as it is. No, it’s probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but those fantasies fulfill that need to escape and allow me to feel more comfortable having to stay here. (((hugs)))
Thanks Susan for the encouragement, but at my age death is not scary anymore. Fantasies are worn out and I’ve closed the doors to any dreams. I am so glad I found this site, so many write the same feelings so well. I not only stumble around I fumble in my words in trying to say what I feel. So I’ve stopped talking until now, right here. A connection? I don’t know, I’m too tired to care and solve any more issues I’ve had all my life. Thanks anyways.
I just wanted to say that your post has pretty much summed up how I felt the last few months. But finally I think someone is listening and going me the help that I need. Thanks. :)
I do not want to live I have failure in all my efforts suggest me what to do
Keep trying! You will eventually succeed.
I tried to kill myself December 21 and luckily I didn’t die though sometimes I think it would have been easier. You need help! You can get help but you have to get it. Only you can rescue yourself. There is no knight in shining armor. I am on medication but its a lot of work to just be normal and I struggle everyday. Please go the doctor I care what happens you and I am putting my arms around you and holding you close.
All any of us can do, kay kay, is just keep trying to hang on!
I’m 62 and diagnosed three years ago after I decided I was done …to tired to much work to unworthy sounded like such a relief. Pills didn’t work out . Yep for sure I’m bipolar . Sometimes to tired to get out of bed …wonder what will become o f me when husband and mom gone ..don’t want to burden kids. Self medicate with alcohol. Escape the worry makes me feel normal. No one but you and I know how hard life is with bipolar. I was so cool before the onset ….good mom successful and sure of my self SHIT
Your post reminded me of those time when being in such pain all I wanted was for it to stop. There were times when not wanting to die wasn’t the goal, but most of the time it has been the goal to not actually die. I also realized reading your post that I was dealing with SI for so long but I was not getting proper help (I am now). Telling everyone I was suicidal got me treatment, but I don’t think the right help. From personal experience not wanting to die but wanting to attempt is in itself a way I cope with that excruciating emotional pain. While I’m focusing on what I could do to self harm or I’m planning a suicide I’m not feeling the pain so much. It’s a way to relieve the pain temporarily by imagining not having it or getting to a place where I will not have it. This insight came after decades of spending long periods of time where suicidal ideation consumed me, finding out I really could do something different about the pain and not be taken for the ride. Today I know my response to specific emotional triggers is a rapid shift to my baseline – ideation. Shifting has gone way down with this awareness and handling the emotional triggers better and better. It also takes all the wind out of it. I don’t have the fear that I may go through with anything. And the fear that I’m actually doing it again. This is not to say I still have to work my butt off at times to keep it at bay, but it is easier to deal and it leaves fast. Wanting out of emotional pain with its desperation and hopelessness is why our brain/mind goes to SI. Thanks!
nothing gets people’s attention quite like thinking you’re about to die.
Theirin is the heart of the matter. If only people could understand that the pin is as bad as it is. And that people can’t take the pain anymore. And that many people DO die when they cannot take the pain anymore–even if what they truly desire is not death at all; but or the pain to stop.
You forgot to mention that when a person does finally get a doctor’s appointment, the medicine that is prescribed usually takes at least 6 weeks to feel any effects. That time seems so much longer, because the person has made an attempt to make things better, and now, it’s just another waiting game. THEN, if that medicine doesn’t work, try a new one, and wait 6 more weeks. That waiting game was when I didn’t want to live anymore.
April!!!! you are soooo right !! i never thought of that here in the blog about this………people wanting & needing help cannot be just sent back home with their meds whether after a suicide attempt or diagnosis etc.They need a helping hand to climb out of their darkness & confusion …”in the meantime waiting six weeks” ….the specialist &/or doctor need to help patient get supports in place to help them when they walk out that door….especially if really down & if never been on meds before, etc. It’s no wonder why so many people fall back in their mental illness, addiction etc. & end up back in the hospital or consider attempting suicide, when left to their own devices……..of course, i am not saying they need to be babysat, however, depending on circumstances the appropriate questions need to asked of patient by medical professionals to make sure the patient will be ok for the next 6 weeks….maybe even for the next few days…ie a phone call or daily checkin from patient or even a brief stay in hospital….just to get monitored closely again depending on situation/circumstances. Everyone is different. In my experience i was prescribed an antidepressant in 2001 & it didn’t sink in that drinking with it was a big deal….April 2003….i attempted suicide ending up in hospital !!! The doctor prescribed me meds….no referral to a specialist at the time…no follow-ups how i was doing, or cautioning me to not drink with them………..what i remember looking back it was like “here you go, this should help you”! period. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, i didn’t know anything about antidepressant ..i was pretty ignorant about it all back then. However, even coming out of hospital two weeks later I still went on drinking with my meds………….but…….by the grace of God, my higher power somehow led me to get sober somehow…..June 26, 2003…i have been sober ever since, (very lucky thing as , none of this would have had given me a clear understanding of what healthy choices i needed to make ) & also I was soooo close to losing my job & everything else that could have come with that before April 2003 when things were so bad….instead with being sober i tried going back to work but finally realized i needed to quit & here i am on Long Term Disability & pension, so i could focus on getting better! So at least even tho i am still struggling to get the help i need, in last couple years i feel i have so many symptoms of bipolar on top of Major Depression & feel i have symptoms of ADHD mixed into the equasion, but i do feel i am moving forward … one day at a time, hoping & believing i can get the help….as i keep putting my foot down hard & demand some help now when things start getting unclear & overwhelming etc.!
Judie
Wow, Natasha, have you been in my head during the last week? I’m just coming off a mixed state that spiraled into huge, frantic SI. Desperately screaming for help (on the inside) while not reaching out to anybody. Not wanting to go to the hospital because they’ll just mess with my meds. I can get babysat at home without the drama or medicine confusion that results from hospitalization… if only I’d ask for help.
Your blog posts are wonderful. Please keep writing.
Thankfully, it seems to be fading. This time… The *fantastic* thing about bipolar is that it WILL return. Maybe next time I can ask for help instead of researching methods.
Hi. Not sure where I’ve been, but I just found your work over the last several days. I was diagnosed with having Bipolar 1 fourteen years ago. I have had on and off struggles and recently hit a new low. I want to thank you for sharing so much information through all you write. Reading many of your blogs over the last few days has kept me taking it a step at a time. I will be talking with my therapist and my dr this week. I truly appreciate you! Take care.
Kelly
Atlanta, GA
Wow, Natasha, have you been in my head for the last week? Definitely screaming for help (inside) and not reaching out. Don’t want to go to the hospital because they just mess with my meds – I can get babysat by myself without the drama and the resulting med confusion… if only I asked for it instead of researching methods.
Thankfully, things seem to be improving for me. This time…
Hi Natasha!!!
I so LOVE YOU & YOUR BLOGS & ALL THAT YOU WRITE ABOUT…i even have your posts coming to my inbox……..& am grateful for this one TODAY!!!
I felt like you were TALKING ABOUT ME!!! Wow to have had YOUR WORDS here for me to read 12 /13 years ago it may have helped me in 2003 when everything fell apart …….then again….who knows right?? oh the “what ifs???” …knowing me tho i know i would probably have taken your advice when STUFF started falling apart for me ….mentally & emotionally ! I could go on but…2 of the most important things you write about here for me was: It definitely was a HUGE SCREAM FOR HELP, because you don’t know what else to do & it is NOT MANIPULATION..!!
I believe some of my family & extended family thought that’s what it was…..however, they didn’t understand my past & how it was contributing to my ever increasing life falling apart………& i didnt’ know why exactly…..all i know is i was getting worse day by day week by week, month by month……..
This post i need to keep for myself….to remind myself why everything happened the way it did & that I was not CRAZY, OR WEAK…& ultimately help me keep hope getting more help that i am STILL needing. I haven’t been monitored for my symptoms of my mental health & over the last couple years i was going downhill again……..so i did exactly what you said January 2011 i got more insistent with my doctor, & it did get me some help but didn’t last so i started to fall apart again in 2012 (especially with my mom passing away suddenly) & i have finally found hope thru my health centre since they finally have been able to afford to bring two PSYCHIATRISTS on board………& i found out about something else for help thru my therapist (who i have only been able to findthis past summer, since my previous therapist moved away….i was without one for over two years). My therapist’s encouragement has been really godsend, giving back to me BELIEF IN MYSELF & BEING HOPEFUL AGAIN….so,
TODAY I am feeling pretty good (albeit i think hiding the ‘REAL’ sad, depressed, confused & frustrated ‘ME’ under a mask!!)
However, like i said i feel hopeful today, without ANY suicidal ideation over the few weeks…with is pretty hopeful i’d say, considering it was thru the holidays!!
Thanks you so much Natasha…….i found you on here over a year ago & read as many of your blogs as i can & i share on facebook & even get in to discussing it with others too…….I hope in the near future i get back to volunteering my time to mental health at my health centre like i was (5 years….had to pull back as my symptoms became worse, especially my depression). I hope to keep volunteering in the mental health sector to help others & see where it takes me to get back on my own to feet with more good self-esteem & confidence to do more & mroe.
Again thanks for all you do …
Judie
Ontario,Canada
Really great post.