It’s something that’s floated around in my mind since I was in gradeschool. I remember having a bad day and just thinking about throwing myself off a cliff. And, up until about two or three years ago, I don’t think I ever completely rejected the idea. (I think I’m just starting to get over a lifetime of depression now.)
Anyways, I assume that nearly everyone has thought about killing themselves, but I would like to know how common the idea of actually considering it is, and the mindset associated with it.
Personally, I would have to say no, though I do feel I’ve been close. I’ve entertained the idea of jumping off a building or speeding into a tractor trailer but I know I’ve never actually considered doing it or actually tried it. In those bad times, I just went through the motions and somehow got through it. I’ve had friends though who haven’t, and I just don’t know why.
Anyways, I’d like to see some numbers and some honest opinions, but if all I get is numbers it’s ok.
Yup. I get severe bouts of depression. The last two included suicidal ideation. It’s fascinating, in a horrible way, to look back and know the only difference between me-ready-to-open-my-veins and me-happy-and-coping is 40 mg a day of fluoxetine, large doses of sunlight, and regular exercise. Thankfully, I knew well enough at the time that alive, I wasn’t too much of a bother to anyone. Dead, I would be a mess to clean up and a whole lot of paperwork.
There’s been times I’ve been miserable, or going through a bout of serious depression, and the thought has come across my mind, in an almost morbidly curious way. Sometimes I ponder the matter even if I’m relatively happy. But seriously debating with myself if I should “pull the trigger” so to speak. No way.
I’d have to be in dire, DIRE straights before I’d ever seriously consider it.
Discipline I see your point and I actually struggled with that question before creating this. I would have to say it’s a completely personal question that only “you” can answer.
For me, it was along the lines of I hate my life, hate myself, no one cares about me, all I feel is pain, never smiling, never laughing, having no confidence, and just generally being entirely pissed off and upset all the time. (the worst of those times being when I was absolutely hammered) But in the back of my mind I knew I’d never go through with it. I think I considered it too selfish. I gotta go to bed but I’ll post more tomorrow and thanks for the responses.
I was this >< close from jumping off a 10th floor balcony when I was 11. I’m not talking about lying down in bed thinking “oh, if I killed myself then they’d miss me!”, I’m talking about seeing my life as a complete waste of breathable air, having my hand on the railing and actively pushing both the self-loathing and the railing away.
That’s the only time I’ve gone beyond “suicidal ideations,” though, and I stopped having those once I grew a self-esteem.
Yes, when I was a teenager. Free advice: Do NOT give troubled young people the lecture about how they are in the best days of their lives, how the problems they’ll face as adults are worse and so on. They might believe you, and you are basically telling them their life will be hell and that they will be helpless do to a thing about it.
Suicide can be such an impulsive thing. I don’t allow myself to dwell on it. If I found myself dwelling on it anyway, I have an emergency plan to get to a safe place. If nothing else, one can always go to an ER.
I’ve been feeling pretty down the last few months, but no, not even close.
Unless I’ve seriously misread the SDMB population (or the population in general), this poll has big selection bias problem. I’d be fairly shocked if 60% of the board had seriously considered suicide at some point.
I’d often wonder what it would be like to be dead, and sometimes I think “oh, well, [current problem] would definitely go away if I was dead.” The idea of actually being dead, though, scares the crap out of me.
A friend used to do telephone counselling, and they had a kind of ranking system for suicide calls. Something like:
talking about committing suicide
< picking a method
< making a specific plan
< taking steps to put the plan into action
< phone in one hand and the gun/sleeping pills/etc. in the other
On that list, I never got past thinking about it, because I couldn’t think of a method that wouldn’t hurt (I didn’t think sleeping pills were certain enough). I have a good method now, but I’m not tempted any more.
Not really. I have thought about it, but I don’t think I would go through with it, unless my life took such a serious downturn I really felt there was truly no escape.
However, I do not fear my death, and would have no regrets should it come along sooner rather than later.
The trouble with this is that by the time you get to deciding that suicide is the only way out, you’re not thinking of how to stop yourself. Rational thoughts, such as those you mention have become redundant at that stage. If you’re undecided, then, yes, you need help and support. But when you cross the line (even if you don’t go through with it) you’re beyond help.
I voted yes, because it’s a sort of security blanket: if things get completely intolerable, I know that there is a way to stop the pain. It’s what stops me doing it: knowing I can. Contradictory, I know, but it is a huge help.
I had a period in my late teens when I thought about it. At the time and because of where I was at mentally, it didn’t seem any big deal. In retrospect I realize that it may have only been the practical difficulties involved that kept me alive, because I sure was moping around for a while.
Had I been brought up in the bush, where every family seems to own a rifle, I may have actually done it.
I’d be interested in hearing that argument, because I don’t agree.
I also would suggest that people who aren’t seriously considering it can be surprisingly successful at killing themselves.
To be honest, for the severity of the depression I have experienced all my life, I have been genuinely suicidal surprisingly few times. I can remember three.
Once, when I was 14 or 15, around the time my own mother attempted suicide, I planned to kill myself by swallowing a bottle of Tylenol III (not sure if it would have worked.) Arguably the only person who could have possibly talked me out of it called me on the phone at that exact moment.
When I was 20 I spent a day sobbing hysterically because I was so close to self-inflicted death I could feel it breathing down my neck. I almost hung myself from a rafter in my dorm room. I ended up going in for emergency therapy and was committed.
When I was 22 I began seriously considering suicide again at what was arguably the most depressed period of my life. I began planning behind my husband (then boyfriend’s) back. I probably should have been hospitalized again, but I muddled through.
And that’s it. 26 years of my life I have struggled with severe depression, and only three times have I been seriously suicidal. I consider myself pretty lucky in that regard.
Yes, a few times; I’ve been affected by depression and general anxiety for over a decade. I’ve considered it recently and have decided I should see a psychiatrist. He or she will be my fourth. In the mean time, a visiting family member went with me to get a medical marijuana card a couple of days ago; it’s a nice albeit temporary solution.
A few years ago, after a surgical operation in a private clinic, I had complications that were badly dealt with, they didn’t called my surgeon until the next day (and boy, was he pissed off!).
I spent that afternoon and first night after the operation in such a miserable state (since on top of the pain from what they thought was a good way to deal with my complications, I was getting really sick --nausea, vomitting, diarrheas, hallucinations-- from the painkiller they were giving me by IV and not listening to me when I was telling them that, and the room was over-heated.), it was seeming such never ending, that I began to seriously think I should save the drug pills they were giving me at regular intervals, and taking them all at once.
That feeling didn’t last, but although I had at times in my life already thought about suicide, neither had I felt it so strongly and urgently.
