Today I want to talk about how hopelessness plus suffering often equals suicide. Just suffering or just being hopeless often isn’t enough. It’s when these things come together that a suicide attempt is made. And while these two variables are not the only ones that can lead to suicide, hopelessness and suffering sure are big ones.

Most people who attempt suicide are suffering from a mental illness. In fact, according to Medscape, 95% of people who kill themselves have a mental illness. (The number would probably be different for suicide attempts.) And while intent to kill oneself could be argued is prima facie evidence for an illness, we can set that aside, for the moment, because while mental illness is a critical factor in suicide, it’s the suffering and hopelessness that come with the mental illness that I would argue is driving that suicidal intent.

Suffering’s Impact on Suicidality

People don’t purposefully kill themselves when they’re not suffering. It’s really that simple. Whether the suffering is deemed to be rooted in the psychology or the physiology hardly matters. Suffering is suffering. And people can experience such deep, dark suffering that they would do anything to end that pain. This suffering, then, increases a person’s suicidality or suicidal intent.

However, if one has hope that the suffering will lessen or end someday, it’s likely one will continue to muscle through the suffering. If I tell you that chemotherapy is going to be the worst suffering of your life but once you’re through it, you may beat the cancer eating away at your liver, you’re likely to willingly undergo that suffering because you know, at some point, it will end. (And in that case, and many other cases, the suffering my actually benefit you in the end — another motivator to continue forward.)

Hopelessness’s Impact on Suicidablity

Hopelessness is another beast though. Few of us would argue that hopelessness will be beneficial to us at some point. Hopelessness is almost like a void. It’s like nothing. It has no ability to improve you or your situation. And hopelessness absolutely can lead to suicide.

  • Hopelessness was found to be a greater predictor of suicide than even past suicide attempts were and even modest levels of hopelessness create a greater risk of suicide among those with first-admission psychosis (source)
  • Hopelessness predicts suicidal ideation, although can’t determine who will exhibit suicidality vs. who will actually attempt suicide (source)
  • Aren Beck found that hopelessness is a stronger predictor of suicidal intent than even depression (source)
  • It was found that those in a high-risk group of outpatients were 11 times more likely to die of suicide than those scoring lower in hopelessness (source)

And, honestly, I could go on and on with the research. Hopelessness is linked to suicide like peas are linked to really, really evil carrots.

Suffering Plus Hopelessness Leads to Suicide

So while there are many risk factors for suicide that have been identified, I would suggest they mostly (although not completely) boil down to the two: hopelessness and suffering. In fact, I would say that if you had every other suicide warning sign except those two, you wouldn’t kill yourself. But with those two alone, I wouldn’t be so sure.

When I think back to my suicide attempt I know I had plenty of both. My suffering came from major (major) depression in bipolar disorder. I was so depressed I could barely function. I was doing dangerous things that were out of character because I just didn’t care about my life. I was uncontrollably sobbing most days. It was hell on Earth. It was the epitome of suffering. There was no part of my being that the suffering wasn’t trying to destroy.

I was also incredibly hopeless. In short, a bitch of a psychiatrist has decided that I would no longer have access to psychiatric help because I couldn’t be helped. That woman (who I usually call something even nastier in stories) handed me hopelessness on a golden platter.

Other things were mixed in there too and, of course, suicidality and suicide attempts are straight-up symptoms of bipolar disorder. Nevertheless, it was the suffering plus the hopelessness that equaled a suicide attempt in my case.

Learning from the Equation Hopelessness + Suffering = Suicide

I think we can learn from this equation. I think most of us are trying to reduce our suffering every day. And why wouldn’t we? The feeling of suffering, day after day, is a truly hideous way to live. But as a prophylactic to suicide, maybe we should also be working on upping our hope. Maybe doctors should understand this connection and try to offer us hope, too. Ironically, it seems like many of them think it’s their job not to “get our hopes up.” And while I don’t think getting someone’s hope “up” falsely is useful, I do think that offering real hope with real facts absolutely is. And can absolutely save a life. After all, by offering me hopelessness on a platter, a doctor almost ended mine. And I wish doctors would take more responsibility for their actions than that.

I see people who are hopeless every day. I suppose we all do. And I try to use my own situation as an example to offer hope when things like longstanding symptoms are getting in the way of what a person wants. I try to show how hopeless I have been and am still alive. I try to tell people that I will hold their hope for them; because, it’s real and it’s out there and one day they will find it again.

If you are suffering and you are hopeless, please know that you’re not alone. Please also know it isn’t a death sentence. You can change those variables and that will change the outcome.