# Have you ever seriously considered killing yourself?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 2, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671 "2009-12-02T05:03:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/41 "2009-12-02T16:14:26Z")

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60% yes? :eek:

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**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/42 "2009-12-02T16:26:00Z")

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> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> No. When I was really depressed and anxious, constantly, sometimes I wondered if I would ever feel better, and if eventually I would have to take that step because I couldn’t stand it any more. But I was never close to doing it. It always seemed to me that even when you are trapped by life and totally miserable,
> 
> it would be better to just leave it all and do something completely different and see how things worked out. We’re all going to die eventually, so might as well stay alive as long as possible.
> 
> I think I’m just lucky that I was never in enough pain that it seemed like the only way to stop the torture.
> 
> I’ve known several suicides now and it does break my heart that every one of them was totally impulsive. But I don’t know what it was like to be them at the moment they made that decision.

You hit on an important point here, one that has helped me to learn to cope with depression. I would imagine most Dopers consider themselves scientists, yes? You have to learn to be a scientist about your mental health. Be willing to experiment with different actions, see how it affects your mood. Try to have a sense of humor about it, be playful. You’d be surprised how much seemingly tiny actions can turn a depressive episode around, or in the very least prevent it from getting worse. One book that started this recovery for me was [Overcoming Depression One Step At a Time](http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Depression-One-Step-Time/dp/1572243678/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259771029&sr=8-1), a behavioral activation approach that is extremely well grounded in empirical evidence.

One of the greatest travesties of the mental health industry is that too many treatments used are not grounded in scientific evidence. The current form of therapeutic intervention for depression that is most well-established in the scientific literature, including several successful randomized control and benchmark trials, is cognitive behavioral therapy. If you like a warm fuzzy approach, try David Burns’ _Feeling Good Handbook_. If you like it rough, try Albert Ellis’ _Guide to Rational Living._ Either way, by seeking out CBT you are obtaining the tools that have been shown to work in the majority of cases.

If you’ll excuse me, I just realized I need to follow my own freakin’ advice.

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**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/43 "2009-12-02T16:41:59Z")

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> [@Weedy](#):
>
> 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

Hmm. On this scale, somewhere around “3”, then.

My wife and I were in the early stages of separation/divorce. She had taken the kids and hidden herself somewhere in the city. There was no danger to the kids, no danger to her. She was just being dramatic. She was gone two nights, the first night at a friend’s house and the second night at a hotel.

It hit me hard. I kept seeing myself losing my children.

I went through a series of panicky, depressive crying jags and ended up on the bed with a shotgun. Butt on the floor, barrel under my chin, I wondered if I could reach the trigger.

I could.

I never loaded the shotgun.

What stopped in in the end was a couple things. Some of it selfish (I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let her win) and some of it less so (the trauma I’d cause to my children if they came home to find their father’s brains on the ceiling).

That was the nadir. Rational thought slowly came back and I realized that things wouldn’t be as bad as my initial emotional reaction.

BTW: Yes/No is too simple a measurement for the pool, IMO.

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**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/44 "2009-12-02T17:12:01Z")

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> [@NineToTheSky](#):
>
> 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.

Until I saw this, I thought I was the only person who felt this way. For years, knowing that suicide was an option was, paradoxically, the only thing that reliably made things bearable.

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**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/45 "2009-12-02T17:16:13Z")

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> [@Weedy](#):
>
> 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.

The scariest time for me was that time I almost hung myself when I was 20. I was going to use my bedsheet and actually got so close to doing it that I had a little mental flash that it had just happened. I had this vision of my husband (then-boyfriend, who lived across the hall) finding my corpse and the panic of ‘‘seeing’’ him in so much pain jolted me into action. I really think I was so close to death that day it qualifies as a traumatic experience.

I ended up going into an emergency clinic. I am usually very averse to expressing intense emotion in public, but that day I was crying so hard that I was hyperventilating and hysterical. Just walking down the street bawling my fucking eyes out.

The lady in the clnic felt obligated to push me. She said, ‘‘How can you think about hanging yourself? It’s such an unpleasant and painful way to die.’’

Without hesitation I replied, ‘‘The temporary pain I would experience cannot even compare to the pain I am in right now.’’ Next thing I know I’m getting a police escort to psych ER.

Even looking back, it was unreal. It was like the ‘‘avoid death’’ instinct inherent in all of us had been reversed. I remember sitting in the hospital room and involuntarily noting everything in the room I could use to kill myself. It was freaky as hell and I hope I never feel that way again.

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**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/46 "2009-12-02T17:17:28Z")

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Two or three times a week.

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**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/47 "2009-12-02T17:38:33Z")

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> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> 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.

This needs to be repeated. If you give stupid advice to a kid, they usually won’t be able to act on it. If you give stupid advice to an adult, they can usually figure out it’s stupid. If you give stupid advice to a teenager, though…bad things happen. Often only emotionally, too, so the relative or friend never really knows how much their words hurt.

If you’re giving advice to a teenager, be very, very careful.

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**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/48 "2009-12-02T17:40:02Z")

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What **NineToTheSky** said. When it’s no longer worth it, I am _so_ outta here.

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**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/49 "2009-12-02T17:46:33Z")

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I’m not surprised at the poll numbers, and can easily imagine little selection-bias going on here. I think this is just one of those many things people almost never talk about IRL.

I’ve thought about killing myself nearly every day for the past 15 years. Once I’ve been at the stage where I had the time, place and method down and paradoxically felt better than in a long time. Several other times I’ve vividly envisioned myself after the deed or been drawn to grab a freshly-sharpened knife to use on myself (and none of that pussy wrist-slicing stuff).

The thing is, I know lots of people who have seriously considered killing themselves. As a teenager, I listened to my older sister sobbing “I want to die, I just want to die”. My best friend, who’s mental issues I had no idea of several years into our friendship, has told me of times when he’s seriously considered suicide. Others have confessed such episodes to me - in all seriousness - when drunk. Easily more than half of the people I interact with frequently may have considered suicide at some point in their lives. No surprise there (and I’m not depressed now, saying that).

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**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/50 "2009-12-02T17:50:56Z")

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> [@Toxylon](#):
>
> I’m not surprised at the poll numbers, and can easily imagine little selection-bias going on here. I think this is just one of those many things people almost never talk about IRL.
> 
> I’ve thought about killing myself nearly every day for the past 15 years. Once I’ve been at the stage where I had the time, place and method down and paradoxically felt better than in a long time. Several other times I’ve vividly envisioned myself after the deed or been drawn to grab a freshly-sharpened knife to use on myself (and none of that pussy wrist-slicing stuff).
> 
> The thing is, I know lots of people who have seriously considered killing themselves. As a teenager, I listened to my older sister sobbing “I want to die, I just want to die”. My best friend, who’s mental issues I had no idea of several years into our friendship, has told me of times when he’s seriously considered suicide. Others have confessed such episodes to me - in all seriousness - when drunk. Easily more than half of the people I interact with frequently may have considered suicide at some point in their lives. No surprise there (and I’m not depressed now, saying that).

Current estimates state that depression affects 1 out of every 4 people at some point in their lifetime. I would imagine that estimate doesn’t include people who keep their traps shut, either out of cultural pressure or some ingrained shame or sense that it is their own fault. I agree there is selection bias here, but depression in reality affects many, many people.

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**Author:** ![Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_of_Dorkness)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/51 "2009-12-02T17:53:13Z")

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> [@cwthree](#):
>
> Until I saw this, I thought I was the only person who felt this way. For years, knowing that suicide was an option was, paradoxically, the only thing that reliably made things bearable.

For many years, I wore a ring that was a band of little skulls, to remind me that someday, I’ll be dead and forgotten, and none of this will matter anymore. It was incredibly reassuring.

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**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/52 "2009-12-02T17:54:04Z")

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> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> Current estimates state that depression affects 1 out of every 4 people at some point in their lifetime. I would imagine that estimate doesn’t include people who keep their traps shut, either out of cultural pressure or some ingrained shame or sense that it is their own fault. I agree there is selection bias here, but depression in reality affects many, many people.

That figure must exclude all kinds of people if we’re talking about “at some point” in their lives. Does depression after your dog dies or your boyfriend dumps you count? Or does it have to be chronic/ongoing?

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**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/53 "2009-12-02T18:13:03Z")

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Seeing as how I’m almost certainly never going to win the lottery and be able to retire (and I can’t think of any job that really appeals to me; after the novelty wears off, every job is 95% tedium), I’m never get to touch a woman unless I hire a hooker because I’m just too uninteresting for anyone to want to spend time with me . . .

Once my mother (who has severe emphysema) passes, I’ll be able to do it with a clear conscience.

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**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/54 "2009-12-02T18:22:34Z")

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> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> Correct–and I don’t want to give the impression I’m advocating that everyone who is depressed go out and commit suicide. Depression is one of the most treatable psychological disorders out there. The vast majority of suicides are impulsive decisions made by people in an extremely irrational frame of mind. I have never looked back on my suicidal days and regretted not doing it. Rather quite the opposite. I thought, ‘‘Thank god I made it through that. I had no idea how good life could be.’’
> 
> \<snip\>
> 
> I’m just saying, when you think about the pain experienced by loved ones of a suicidal person, you have to be aware that the depressed person has been suffering _at least_ that much, most likely for a far longer time.

I agree with everything **olives** has said in this thread, but most of all this.

I attempted suicide twice. One time was more of a gesture, I can see now. The second time I came very close to dying.

**Now** I can see how selfish it was. **Then** , I could not. **Now** I can see how much there is to live for and be glad (and amazed!) that I don’t feel as pained just to be alive. **Then** , there really _wasn’t_ as much to live for.

I’ve had pain since those attemots (most recent one was almost 20 years ago), to be sure. But I’ve had a lot of coping as well.

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/55 "2009-12-02T18:23:23Z")

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> [@MeanOldLady](#):
>
> That figure must exclude all kinds of people if we’re talking about “at some point” in their lives. Does depression after your dog dies or your boyfriend dumps you count? Or does it have to be chronic/ongoing?

There’s “the blues” (for lack of a better term), there’s exogenous depression and there’s endogenous depression.

“The blues” are temporary, linked to a specific point in time and go away by themselves. Your dog died. You get over it. That was what I’m calling “the blues.”

Exogenous depression is caused by a specific, ongoing bad situation. Once the situation is solved, the depression goes away - unless the situation has gone on for so long that the depression has become ingrained. You’ve got three kids, a wife who’s bedridden, and no job. That’s a situation in which it’s perfectly rational to feel like shit.

Endogenous depression is caused either by a chemical problem in the body or because a normal “down” of either of the two previous types has gone on for so long that your self-feeding mental circles are all negative. If it’s the first, you’ll need happy pills; if it’s the second, the pills won’t be very helpful; in both cases, appropriate therapy helps break the bad circles and create good ones.

That figure is based on guesstimates, in turn based on how many people have seen a doctor for depression at some point. My brother’s poem about suicide doesn’t count, since he never got seen by a doctor (he was 7); neither do I, Mom or Dad, since we all had depression at some point but it was never diagnosed or treated (in every case I’m talking about more than a year depressed). It’s something like “if, in countries with accesible psychiatric / psychological care, 1 in 8 people have been treated for depression, we can guesstimate that it’s actually been more like 1 in 4 who have had it at some point.”

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/56 "2009-12-02T18:24:26Z")

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> [@Weedy](#):
>
> 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.

Probably not more than a strong #2 or mild #3, for me, and not for almost two years now.

It’s actually a little eerie, now, thinking about it, and how far along the planning got—jeez, a little more than “eerie” truth be told—but at the time, it really didn’t make me feel much more than a sense of bittersweet relief. Kind of a grislier step past what **cwthree** and **Ninetothesky** said above—“at least I know it’s finally gotten to the point where there’s a real way out.”

Things have gotten better since, I’m glad to say. Some of that was from me, some of it was from other people. Some of it was just from luck and circumstances. If not for some of those…well, by now, it would have been ‘Goodnight, Houdini.’

I mean, I don’t want to sound too melodramatic (or emo), but it’s not like I’ve forsaken the very concept. Things are looking pretty okay in my life (knock on wood!), and I’m not expecting (or at least anticipating) things getting that bad again, but if some fresh hell ever engulfs my life, and I’m not seeing any real way out of it, I see no particular obligation to stick around and just take it. It’s my option, and my right to take it. I don’t mean to take it _lightly_, but it’s far from unthinkable.

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**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/57 "2009-12-02T18:31:36Z")

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The gun was loaded, chambered, cocked, and only the pressure necessary to pull the trigger stood in the way. My life was crashing down around me at a magnificent rate (semi-true, but not as bad as it seemed), I thought that I had no friends (wrong), My girl was thousands of miles away and no way to talk (pre-email, international calls pretty much non-existent), family was dumping me, and I was about to drop out of college. Yeah, life was seriously sucking.

I someone crawled out, exited with a large dose of “fuck them all,” and moved on.

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**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/58 "2009-12-02T18:38:05Z")

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> [@Nava](#):
>
> That figure is based on guesstimates, in turn based on how many people have seen a doctor for depression at some point. My brother’s poem about suicide doesn’t count, since he never got seen by a doctor (he was 7); neither do I, Mom or Dad, since we all had depression at some point but it was never diagnosed or treated (in every case I’m talking about more than a year depressed). It’s something like “if, in countries with accesible psychiatric / psychological care, 1 in 8 people have been treated for depression, we can guesstimate that it’s actually been more like 1 in 4 who have had it at some point.”

Ah, well the 1 in 4 referring to endogenous depression makes more sense. For anything else, I’d guess the figure was closer to 4 in 4.

I’ve never experienced depression that was not related to my life being crappy at the moment, but even then, it was passing. That is, the depression passed before the crappiness passed.

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/59 "2009-12-02T19:25:24Z")

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> [@Belrix](#):
>
> What stopped in in the end was a couple things. Some of it selfish (I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let her win)

I think that is what always pulled me back. That feeling that if I did I was letting people I didn’t like and my problems in general win always pulled me back.

I remember an episode of South park where the principal was talking about her battle with cancer. Basically she said something like ‘even if you lose the battle, the fact that you didn’t let that piece of shit [cancer/cartman] win without a fight is what is important’.

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**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seriously-considered-killing-yourself/519671/60 "2009-12-02T19:47:16Z")

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Thought about it a few times, but always at the “what do I have to live for, would anyone miss me, but can’t be bothered to do anything about it” level.

Closest I ever came was about a year after my wife’s death. After she died I was having trouble sleeping and my doctor had prescribed Ambien, to be taken “as needed”. I took them on and off but they’d never really helped that much. Then one day, shortly after the anniversary of her death I was at work and something set me off. There was no way I could get any work done, and my manager let me go home. When I got home I decided to try to take a nap, and I dug out the bottle of Ambien. I shook out the contents, looked at the single pill that was left, and thought, “it’s probably a good thing I hadn’t gotten this refilled.” When I realized what I had just thought, I put the pill back in the bottle and called my doctor. After I explained why I was calling, the operator checked with someone, then told me to come right over and someone would see me ASAP. As it turned out, my regular doctor was out that day, but one of the other doctors at the clinic saw me. After determining that it didn’t seem necessary to have me admitted to the hospital for my own protection he prescribed an antidepressant and set me up with an appointment to see a psychologist.

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