Have you ever seriously considered killing yourself?

In My Humble Opinion
61

It could be self selection bias. However part of me wonders how many of those 40% who voted no would consider it if the right pressures were put on them. Give them severe depression, take away their jobs, let their kids die in a car wreck, etc.

I’m surprised that there are probably so many people who had to (being human and all) go through severe traumas (family and career loss, mental illness, shame, abuse, etc) and claim they never consider it. Not even attempt it, but just never even consider it.

So I wonder how many of the people who haven’t considered it haven’t considered it because they aren’t wired for self destruction, or because they haven’t been pushed far enough by life events.

Something like 90% of suicides are among people with diagnosable (but possibly untreated or undertreated) mental illnesses and psychiatric problems. however those are completed acts. I am guessing/assuming (possibly wrongly) that if you have life trauma but no underlying mental illness (no depression, no schizophrenia, no bipolar, no anxiety or substance abuse disorder, etc) then it probably usually doesn’t go beyond the talking and planning phase.

There are also people who seriously consider suicide (sexual abuse victims, people who lose their jobs, people who struggle with their sexuality, etc).

Something like 30% of GLBT citizens have attempted suicide (not just considered it but attempted it).

http://www.youth-suicide.com/gay-bisexual/news/studies.htm

http://www.psychologymatters.org/teensuicide.html
One in five teenagers in the U.S. **seriously **considers suicide annually, according to data collected by the CDC. In 2003, 8 percent of adolescents attempted suicide,

Keep in mind that is a ‘serious’ consideration, and it is already at 20% for teenagers. The rate for people with more fleeting considerations is likely much higher.

http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/publications/factsheets/child-sexual-abuse

I think there is a big overlap though. Sexual abuse victims and GLBTers are more likely to have a serious mental illness (anxiety disorder, depression, even schizophrenia) than people who aren’t. So its all very multifaceted. Does the sexual abuse victim with major depression consider suicide due to the depression or due to the sexual abuse which may have made her predisposed to depression.
My point is that, I’m surprised 40% have never considered suicide. I wonder if they are just wired for survival or if they have never been exposed to severe trauma (sexual abuse, severe rejection and isolation, mental illness, severe loss).

How many people can experience severe trauma, shame, mental illness, abuse (physical, sexual, verbal, emotional), sexual confusion, job loss, family loss, etc. and never consider suicide?

62

I guess not. Although I too, have read graphic accounts of torture (I’m taking an international human rights course this semester) that I’m sure, were I experiencing them, I would prefer death. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to imagine myself in that situation, and it’s hard to know what I would do.

I hope this doesn’t sound flippant or condescending, but I am very often grateful that I am not clinically depressed. It’s such a terrible and debilitating disease and it still carries such a social stigma that you can just “snap out of it”.

63

I thought the key word here was “seriously.” I’m sure every angsty teenager has had a “I’ll show them!” moment, and every person who has been laid off, suffered abuse, been evicted, gone through a divorce, suffered a serious illness, etc has had, “Can’t I just end this?” thoughts, but these are not necessarily serious considerations of suicide.

64

Consider for a moment that you believe the real abuse of your family members is forcing them to endure you. Because you’re such an irredeemable and spineless failure of a person who has nothing meaningful to contribute to society or family. Because your fits of rage terrify your children and you’re always too exhausted or humiliated by your outbursts to gain their trust or show them love. And you know that they’d get by without you, that you’ll be easily forgotten and seldom missed. That embracing death would be the only suitable apology.

Considering that, how cruel and selfish would you have to be to NOT seriously consider making things right?

65

Yes. Did some research on pills that would work. Drove around over a few days to different drug stores to stock up on sufficient pills to do the job. I was all prepared to kill myself. Except… part of me didn’t want to… and that part of me called my therapist, who talked me out of it.

That was years ago. I can’t imagine wanting to kill myself now. Take a long vacation? Yes. Die? No.

66

I guess it depends on how you define seriously (do you need a plan, or an attempt, or tools, or what exactly). But according to the CDC 20% of teenagers seriously consider it in a year. I don’t know if it is the same core group or a constantly shifting group due to transient life traumas like death or parental separation. But evenso, the fact that within 1 year about 20% of teenagers will seriously consider it makes me think that a 60% rate for adults ranging from 20-80 seriously considering it at least once in their lives should be either right or if anything low.

67

I voted no because I never made any specific plans towards such.

But during my bleakest times, when I was still struggling to co-exist with the depression that has dogged me since I was thirteen, I would often wish I could fall asleep and not wake up.
That’s all. Just a fantasy of mine.

Lately, I haven’t had such wishes. Drugs have been a help, but before those, it was simply a “press on regardless” mindset that kept me going. It’s a terrible, wearying solution, but it worked for me for almost twenty years until Prozac came along.

68

I had been blown up (war thing) and I was in incredible pain. If I could have pulled it off, I would have killed myself. I couldn’t and I lived. The one thing about it is that like the character in Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five, whenever it gets bad for me - physically, emotionally or whatever - I always can say, “It’s not as bad as when…” and I have never considered it since.

69

I flirted with suicide twice. One time I slit one wrist, just to see if I’d do it. I don’t think I was trying to kill myself then though, I think I was just testing myself to see if I could/would.

Another time I decided that I was going to kill myself by driving way out into the wilderness and dying of exposure. I didn’t take anything with me, because I didn’t want to have anything that would help me survive. So I drove off down a logging road, not really sure how far I’d go. After driving for about two hours I started getting annoyed with all the bumps and potholes and thinking about what it was doing to my car. By then I suddenly thought “what am I doing?” , turned around and went home.

70

I have had suicidal tendencies for most of my life. I tried to hang myself when I was 10/11, but used a plastic jump rope; it merely stretched and left a scrape up the front of my neck. (I was in my 30’s before I could wear a turtle neck. Couldn’t stand ANY pressure on my neck at all!!)

I had several instances of having to go sit in my truck without keys just to get myself away from any and all things sharp. About 10 years ago, I planned on the murder/suicide of my two daughters and myself. As people up thread commented, I felt strangely better after that. Almost as if I had a plan B, and that helped take the pressure off.

I have considered suicide countless times, whether things were going well or not. Most of my life has been a struggle, and I have fought really hard to get through it all. But when I come to those times in life where I just can’t seem to move forward, no matter how hard I try? That’s when the thought comes to me. One thing that has helped is to accept it as an option, but disregard it as a choice.

71

I am going to interpret “seriously” as meaning “making plans and preparations.” By that measure, the answer is twice.

The first time was not long after my son’s death. I was in despair but hiding it and had decided that I was going to spend one last night with my then girlfriend and then off myself. Luckily for me she was fairly good at reading unspoken signals, and she intuited that something was wrong with me and got me to tell her what was wrong. She talked me out of it.

The second time was some years later. I used to be an abusive shit to women I dated, and one day I realized just how much trauma I had put one girl in particular through. I decided the Earth was better off with me inside rather than over it, so I called in sick to work, cleaned the apartment as if i were moving and worried about the security deposit, packed everything up, and prepared to do the deed. I lost my nerve, or regained my senses, at the last moment, in part because a co-worker of mine called for an entirely selfish reason. He needed my help with a project of his and was vexed that I hadn’t made it in to work. Any other day I would have been annoyed with him, but that day it made me realize that I was not, in fact, worthless.

Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that in a long while. My life was saved by a cow-orker.

72

I am absolutely terrified of dying, so no. No matter how bad my situation has been I’ve always thought being alive would be much better than dead.

I have been through some serious clinical depression. I have multiple phobias that affect my life considerably. I have a severe case of panic disorder I lived with for 30 years and finally recently found a med that helps considerably. I’ve thought it might be better if I could just die but I’ve never thought about doing it myself.

73

Early 20’s: dropped out of college, had a painful breakup of sorts with someone who was as much a kindred soul as I ever thought I’d find, and basically thought I was completely worthless and saw absolutely no point to my life at all. Would think myself into some awful funks; it would have been the 9th floor balcony of my parent’s condo (where she also lived). I guess I never really went through with it because I didn’t want to cause her pain, tho in my delusional mind I also thought we would get back together someday. They did put me on antidepressants, but I don’t think they made much of a difference in the mid-term.

Now? No effin’ way. I’ve changed in so many ways since then it’s unthinkable to me now-I see my life as a precious gift (tho it’s an ideal I never always live up to admittedly), and the negative thought cycles are completely gone, along with a bunch of other stuff, replaced by many new & improved thought patterns. Practicing some good ol’ fashioned Buddhist non-attachment helps too, or if you like you can call it adult perspective. Oh, I have means with which I could do it near at hand, but no temptation at all.

74

I don’t mean this to sound insensitive, but this thread makes me feel so much better knowing I am not the only one.

There are some good and useful facts here.

On Nava’s comment on exo- and endo- depression, I wanted to add that a diagnosis of major depressive disorder really only requires that the symptoms last at least 2 weeks. When it comes to diagnosis, the cause isn’t really considered, just the outward symptoms. I have no doubt that the vast majority of the people on the planet have been depressed for at least two weeks.

And–it’s not necessarily one or the other, external or chemical. By definition all of our mental states are chemical. Sometimes depression can be the result of a bad event and a neurochemical imbalance. In fact, a very common frame work for mental illness is the ‘‘diathesis stress model’’ which essentially argues that people with mental illness probably have a biological personality predisposition that is triggered by stressful events in the individual’s life. Not nature vs. nurture. Both.

Also, and this is important: there is a myth that people who talk about wanting to commit suicide are less likely to actually do it. That is patently false. In fact, **the more often you attempt suicide, the more likely you are to be successful next time – whether you mean to be or not. ** One of the highest rates of suicide is among people with Borderline Personality Disorder, who often frequently threaten suicide or engage in dramatic attempts. Loved ones grow to see them as manipulative and begin to take them less seriously. An estimated 8 to 10% of these people end up killing themselves. As a rule of thumb, always take a suicide threat seriously. Always.

75

I made a plan about a year ago. I know what I’d use to kill myself (dad’s gun, just down the hall), where I would do it (motel, so my family wouldn’t find me), what the note would say, everything I’d need. I’m not suicidal all the time, but there have been days where all that’s stopped me is knowing what my mother would go through.

The idea of pain overpowering a strong survival instinct isn’t true for me. I just happen to be rather apathetic about my existance, most of the time.

76

The few people I know who have been treated for it had been depressed for a lot longer than that by the time they got seen about it, though. Usually they didn’t try to see a doctor about it: either a relative forced them to see one, or a doctor friend saw there was something amiss.

Psychiatry is currently considered the Cinderella of the Spanish medical system. There’s no numerical test for the most common ailments (depression is the biggest) and still a lot of social stigma (worse if you’re in therapy than if you’re on pills). It is very difficult to get therapy for more than a period which depending on where you live goes from a month (!) to a year; staying on pills once you’ve been put on them is easier, as it gets treated like any other specialist-diagnosed illness, with the pills being refilled by your GP and visits to the psychiatrist only if you need the prescription checked (you can also ask for a specialist visit on grounds of “it’s been a while and I want to make sure this is still the best treatment for me”). But if what you need is therapy boy you’re soooo screwed :frowning: Groups like the Widows Association are pushing for better access to SS-paid therapy and to different forms of therapy, but the amounts of societal denial don’t help.

77

Still answering olives, sorry.

The “not one or the other” was what I meant by “exo becoming endo.” You get people like my father, unable to go look like a job because being jobless, with a bedridden wife and three kids has him in a funk, but who go right back to normal when a job manages to find him, even though the joblessness and corresponding depression had gone on for 10 months (and then he couldn’t understand why Mom was still depressed as well as bedridden); you get others like my classmate who went into a depression when her brother got killed in a truck-to-bike crash (she was riding pillion) and who’s still in suicide watch 25 years later.

78

Someone once suggested to me that I’m in the process of a suacide attempt right now. The idea isn’t entirely without merrit.

When I was younger, a pattern of social isolation and bullying (by both peers and authority figures (outside of family members)), culminating with me having most of the bones in my face shattered in the sixth grade (to which the school’s response was “boys will be boys”), led to an ever increasing sense of depression.

I repeatedly contemplated sucide back then, but was never able to settle on a method. I was both consious of, and frustrated by, the fact that it was the depression and sense of helplessness itself that was keeping me alive for a stretch of that, since I was sure that the universe wouldn’t allow me to escape the situation, and all I would accomplish by an attempt would be to cripple myself before I was “saved”. I spent a long time anylizing the various methods avalibe to me, but I couldn’t find one that was sufficiently certain for me. Helped that I spent a lot of time reading medical articles and often ran into some of the more unbelievable things people had survived before.

The aforementioned incident in sixth grade was possibly an attempt. I know, at the very least, during that incident, I had no care whether I lived or died. I was having an “up” moment, believing for a moment that maybe I could turn things around, when I was sucker punched out of nowhere. I saw red (whether my own blood in my eyes or a blood-pressure related effect), and attacked back. My only thought was that I wasn’t going to stop until one of us was dead. Considering that in the entire fight I hadn’t managed to land a single blow, while the X-rays taken later had the doctors scratching their heads in wonder that none of the bone fragments had gone into my brain, I think it’s safe to assume it wouldn’t have been him. In the end, I had to be forcibly pulled away when one of the teachers finally showed up.

Things did start to turn around after that point. It was impossible for the school to turn a blind eye to the severity of damage I’d suffered, and presumably they made more of an effort to deal with the bullying (and toned down their participation in it). The one in question was taken to court. I never found out the details of how that went, but I knew he suffered some kind of punishment. Recognizing that it was possible to see this behavior punished (even if it took so severe a result for it to show up on society’s radar) helped, as did some martial arts classes I subsequently enrolled in.

I still tend to be suspicious of authority figures and view them in an antagonistic light.

The individual I mentioned at the top of the post suggested that, on some level, I’m driven to confront bullies as a way of making up for all those years of meekly accepting that there was nothing I could do. Even suggested that my sexual orientation might be a means of attracting some of the most dangerous to myself. That was an interesting conversation and gave me a lot to think about. Didn’t change anything for me, but it did give me a lot to think about.

79

There was a time, were times, when I considered on a pretty much daily basis ending my life.

I thought for hours, had plans, elaborate ones, and thought of ways to make it known once the time came.

The easy way out, or “life’s reset button” always beckoned me. The thought of my father crying, by itself, seemed to wake me up though. My ease, by way of dying, would never make up for the pain that my death would cause my family. Ever. That did it for me.

These feelings can and will pass, imagine that relief. Imagine the relief that your loved ones feel because you have decided to live. People can overcome great obstacles, but only if they refuse to quit.

If you have suicidal thoughts, please talk to someone, don’t be silent.

80

Yes, tried several times and still don’t know why the last two didn’t work - or at least leave me brain-damaged or something. I’ve been hospitalized, been on anti-deps, been in therapy blah blah blah it’s all a crock of shit.

I fucking well hope so, because failing at suicide is… really depressing!

I was diagnosed with that (among a bouquet of others) earlier this year, but honestly I’m not trying to manipulate anyone, in fact most of my attempts are completely unknown to anyone but me (and now you).
After coming out of hospital (which included over a month of intensive DBT) I made several attempts and that was while I was on a fairly high dose of Effexor. I’ve since taken myself off it because it’s a horrible drug. I went and rejoined society and got a job and bills to pay etc. after renouncing it all for the last time, and now I just go through the motions. I try enjoy what little sparks of joy life offers but they come increasingly few and far between. Not many days pass where I don’t think to myself “what the fuck am I bothering for”.
Still need an answer.