I have several family members who have problems with depression and in fact, my mother has had sever problems with depression, and I know that it can be difficult. To be honest, I’ve never experienced the type of depression that (I think) is required for suicidal thoughts. I do know (or at least I believe it is) that this world is an ever changing place and that almost anything is possible, which might or might not be a difference.
I hope that you have gotten through the rough parts and that all of the depression is behind you.
As I’m getting older (I’m 55), my mortality is something that I do contemplate from time to time, and like Meatros, I’m curious about what lies beyond. However, not curious enough that I’ve wanted to, or even thought about ending my life to find out.
Every person has the potential to do whatever they want. Someone who chooses the easy way out is in no way suffering more, or less equipped to endure, or any other rot. They just decided to give up. They weren’t forced to give up. They didn’t give up because they didn’t have What It Takes ™ to go on. They made a choice.
The idea that some people are just naturally born to suicide is the kind of drivel that leads a lot of kids to the idea that it is a reasonable option. If a kid is having trouble and they start reading or hearing about how, “Some people just have too much to endure and the natural course is to end it all to escape their torment,” they can churn up enough angst to actually try something.
The last thing someone who is down needs to hear is that suicide is a reasonable idea. Suicidal Ideation needs to be more often presented as a symptom. Young people should be taught that thinking about harming yourself is a symptom just as a sore throat is a symptom and not a romantic sign that you’re depressed enough to be cool.
As for the question, no, I am much too conceited to ever think about removing myself from the world. What would it do without me?
I saw an article once that said a study determined that 1 in 6 had experienced suicidal thoughts. I remember thinking that this sounded incredibly optimistic.
Everyone that I have personally asked this question has had suicidal thoughts. Granted there’s undoubtedly a selection bias to that group, but I’d have still thought that those who had never contemplated suicide would be a tiny minority.
I’ve never considered suicide a real viable option. Perhaps I’ve lived a charmed life (and assuredly I haven’t had it tough), but it seems like as bad as things ever were, being dead would be worse.
Degrance If you haven’t been there - do not bother with the generalisation. Every person? Bullshit! Clinical depression is severely debilitating. It can leave you unable to even raise yoursefl from bed, not eating to the point of serious malnutrition. It is not a matter of ‘pick yourself up and get on with it’.
And the choice to suicide is NOT an easy one. It is not an ‘easy way out’ at all.
UnwrittenNocturne in Degrance’s deffence, I think he was saying that if I consider suicidal thoughts as a symptom of clinical depression, rather than a natural response to my own inadequacies, then it is easier to realise that I should go to a doctor and try to get it fixed.
I went for 13 years thinking my self dissregard was natural and normal, as such it didn’t occur to me to see a doctor about it. Duirng those years I attempted suicide twice, and thought about it very often. Then in my late teens I learnt about clinical depression, and went to see my doctor. Only in knowing that suicidal thoughts do not mean you are invalid as a living being, but that you are ill/dissabled was I able to start on the road to recovery.
Since then I have been on various antidepressants for about 15 years, I am certainly not cured but I had to deal with frequent suicidal thoughts for many years now, and am able to function as a completely worthwhile individual (even if I still cannot feel myself to be fully worthwhile).
Cheers, Bippy
I’ve also never had any suicidal thoughts. High or low I’m here to live this one and only life I’ll ever have whatever eternity waits me when it’s done is forever and no sense rushing into the unchanging.
And I highly doubt I ever will since there is absolutely no way I could do that to my mother or my sister.
I’ve had a pretty good life, and despite my lack of social life in high school I never thought that killing myself would benefit anyone. I always hated the whole “teen angst” idea where teenagers are supposed to be depressed and no one loves them etc etc. Plus the fact that I’m scared to death of…death prevented me from doing that to myself.
Society makes it very easy and in fact fashionable to see depression as an innate aspect of a person’s being rather than a correctable syndrome. This is because that is how we are taught to think about it, especially by the depictions of depression in fiction.
And just for the record I am personally acquainted with depression. I just never considered suicide. But guess what, just 'cause someone else has that doesn’t mean their depression was worse, or better, or more real than mine, just that they had different symptoms. Suicide should not be used as the dipstick of depression. This is another myth that society has created.
“Suicidal thoughts = the pinnacle of depression” is a false premise.
I think the fact that I had to deal with death at a very young age makes me have more appreciation for life, and frankly, little patience for those who don’t appreciate it. All I could think when we had to study Sylvia Plath’s poetry in school was “for someone who claims to be good at suicide, you’ve done a crappy job of it.”
I realize this is my problem. Never make me a suicide hotline counselor.
The thought has crossed my mind occasionally, but never seriously. I really, really need to be able to cling onto the thought that there’s better stuff ahead, and that thought just simply will not allow me to not get there.
My body chemistry got way out of whack when I crash-dieted once. I half-heartedly attempted suicide.
It wasn’t when I was depressed, though (I was swinging rapidly from quite manic to quite depressed. Thyroid went on hiatus). It was, believe it or not, on what I’d term the “up” side of things.
I didn’t want to die. I was just bored. I was on vacation in Ottawa, and we’d gone up to Pedawawa, and was staying with a great-aunt. There was nothing to do. All I had in my backpack was a book I’d finished on the bus ride up, my clothes/toiletries, and sleeping pills (my grandma snored, so I needed them to GET to sleep). I wondered what would happen if I took X-many pills–I think it was like four or five or six or something–I don’t remember very well. I figured I’d die, but I wasn’t sure. I just wanted to see what happened. Sort of like sticking a nine volt on your tongue. You’re PRETTY sure it’s going to hurt like hell, but maybe–just maybe–something cool’ll come out of it. The thought of “well, if I die, then I’m not coming back” just didn’t occur to me. It was, “let’s see what happens when/if I die.” I was just bored. It’s hard to explain my thought process. I don’t really understand it, myself.
What happened? Well, I slept for about 14 hours, woke up with a killer headache (my cousin woke me up), and decided that sleeping pills were as boring as my great-aunt, and moved on to playing with the disposible camera I got from someone on the bus. I may or may not have stolen it. I don’t remember.
As for seriously contemplating suicide–as in, life sucks so bad I’d rather be dead, or maybe, I want attention, and if I die, then I’ll get attention and I’ll show them? Nope. Never.
But “I’m bored, let’s see what happens when I die”? Yep.
Interpret that as you will.
I went down the “life sucks and I’m tired of living it” road but was lucky enough to fail at suicide (although I didn’t feel that way at the time)
I’d like to think the minority of people find themselves in that much pain but I don’t know. I realize now that I have a great life and a lot to be thankful for but at the time I was a sleep deprived teenager trying to pretend life was normal when in reality my mother was depressed and spending all her free time asleep on the couch and my father was making me stay up until 3 am so he could molest me every night. The really fun nights were the ones he gave me drugs to make me fight less. Sometimes being dead seemed easier.
I remember reading Tom Sawyer* around 4th grade or so, and being idly curious about what happens after death, and how everyone would react after I was dead…not wanting to die, but just being filled with curiosity about what comes after death. Reading about other religions and reincarnation and such makes me ponder death, too, but not enough to want to see for myself anytime soon!
Even in my darkest moments of depression and despair, I’ve never had the urge to harm myself. (And there have certainly been some dark moments.) It’s just not who I am.
I’m not sure if this is the same-I occasionally get very depressed, and it can last for days and days, during which time I honestly wish I were dead. But I’ve never actually thought about what I’d do to achieve that end. I always just wish a bus would fall out of the sky and kill me. I want to be dead, but I don’t want to kill myself. Maybe because I’ve been one of the people left behind by a suicide, and I don’t want to cause the people that love me that much pain.
Hmm, you know, I was going to say that I’ve frequently contemplated suicide, but now that I think about it, I’m not sure I have. What I do often enough is fantasize about death. “What if this airplane dropped like a rock out of the sky, right now”… “what if I got run over by a bus while jogging” … “what if I fell over this railing”… but there’s usually no aspect of me being active in my speculative manner of death.