Suicide. That’s the word that if people talk about it at all, they will usually use. “Took their own life” might come up. “Killed themselves” is farther down the list.
Have you ever heard someone say, “That kid murdered himself” or “That kid committed murder when she killed herself”?
I hope no one ever murders you. Not even you. But if you are reading this right now, you might be considering murdering yourself.
What do you call it to yourself?
In the Dr. Seuss animated feature, “Halloween is Grinch Night” the Whos down in Whoville call the outhouse (or bathroom), the euphemism. Euphemism is one of those words they expect you to learn for the SAT. It means “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.” Outhouse and bathroom are euphemisms. While there may be a bath in the room you use at home, the ones in school definitely have no bath.
Dr. Seuss was a clever guy. He realized that every word commonly used around the activities involved in urinating and defecating are euphemisms, so he skipped them all, and just called that room “The Euphemism.”
Death is kind of like that. Most people flinch, just a little, when they read the words “urinate” and “defecate” if they know what they mean. Pee, piss, poop, shit, and a host of other words, are more common, but still likely to be words people avoid when talking to the President, if you know what I mean. Saying someone died or is dead is hard. Many people flinch at hearing those words.
Still, lots of people have heard themselves say “I wish I were dead” or “Oh, I just want to kill myself” as if this was not a big deal at all. People forget that dead means dead and kill means kill as if they were their own euphemisms. “I could just kill my boss, there’s no way to get this project done by Friday!”
Right now, however, you are reading this blog, and in this blog, killing yourself, murdering yourself, is taken very seriously.
When some crazy, terrible person kills someone else’s pet, that beloved pet is gone for ever. No one gets confused about that. Still, some people feel like they are using a euphemism when their mind tells themself they’d be better off dead, as if this was a temporary condition.
Death is permanent.
Most people are not mentally ill. But 90% of people who decide to commit suicide, are mentally ill at the time that they commit that act of self-murder. Their minds told them it was the absolute only and best way to escape.
Minds are sensitive. To be able to look at a bunch of squiggles placed in line after line, with a few dots and dashes, and recognize it as reading, and finding meaning from words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books, is truly amazing.
What if you looked at writing, and it looked like this:
Our minds process what is outside of us, what is happening to us, and what is inside of us, all the time. We read a book, and our mind translates squiggles on the page into words that have meaning, then takes that meaning and compares it to what we already know, and comes up with new ideas that until that moment, were neither on the page or in our brain. An entirely new thought is created.
And this happens while keeping your heart pumping, your lungs breathing, your muscles holding the book, your eyelids open…you get the point. Inside your body and brain, all the systems that make up you are working hard and in such intense ways, at such a level of detail, that if we had to think about it all, we might literally go insane.
Luckily, our mind filters out the stuff it can do on its own, and only lets you be aware of what you need to be aware of.
Usually.
Sometimes, something happens that overloads the mind. And the mind doesn’t function properly. This happens to everyone, sometimes. When you feel sad about a story that is complete fiction, your mind is reacting to it as if it were real. When you were little, you may have been afraid of the dark, or of a loud storm, or of being alone, even though you were safe. Because your mind told you that the situation was dangerous, and you had no way to believe that your mind might tell you something that was not actually true.
When a person’s mind tells them that the only way to fix a problem, is to kill themselves, the mind is on overload, and the mind has made a mistake.
But that mind is tremendously convincing!
It might tell you things like:
If I kill myself, I will stop feeling so bad.
If I kill myself, they will finally understand how badly they are treating me.
If I commit suicide, I won’t have to deal with this hell.
And also things like:
No one can help me. I cannot accomplish this, and no once can help me accomplish it, and so the only thing I can do is escape, and the only way to escape is to kill myself.
Or:
I am such a loser. Everyone would be better off if they didn’t have to deal with me. The best thing I can do for all of them, is take my own life, because then they won’t have me as a burden.
Or:
I know they always say to “reach out for help” but since my problem is absolute, and no one can fix my problem, the only thing reaching out is going to accomplish, will be to make whoever I reach out to feel even more guilty, because they won’t be able to fix my problem, and I’ll still have to kill myself, so I’ll just kill myself and hide my intentions from everyone, so no one can say later, “I thought they were having problems, I should have done something.”
Or:
NO! This must stop NOW! I can’t stand it a moment longer.
And then they kill themselves. Because their mind didn’t give them any other option, and they didn’t know there was an option. Minds want to protect the people they inhabit from all manner of pain. This is why if someone is in terrible pain, sometimes they will just pass out. Unfortunately, when the mind gets this freaked out, and all it is saying is “you must die now, waiting will only make it worse” that is a sign that your mind is not functioning right.
Minds that say “killing myself is the thing to do” are minds that are hurting so much, they have become sick. It is called mental illness for a very good reason: because it is not operating in a healthy way.
Inside of your brain there are many chemical and electrical actions and reactions going on all the time. Your brain is soft and squishy, which is why your body has encased your brain inside a hard, bone skull, and stuck a bunch of sensors on it (eyes, nose, ears, mouth) to have the most direct input available for the fastest ability to respond to threats.
It is a good system. But no system is perfect, or entirely safe from temporary damage. If you bump your leg hard, you will get a bruise. If your leg is bashed really hard, your leg bone will break. These injuries are easy to see, easy to feel, we know that we are injured, and we don’t imagine that the injury will magically stop hurting right away (though we wish it would). We know that we might need some first aid, or some medicine, a cast, or even surgery. We know that the more minor the injury, the shorter the time it will take to heal, and the more serious the injury, the longer it will take to heal. And we understand that we need to protect our bodies from extreme injuries, because it is possible that an injury can be so bad, that even after it has healed as much as possible, it will not work as well as it did before.
Our mind is the same. If someone says something really mean to you, you will feel pain. Emotional pain. Maybe intellectual pain. If the person who said the mean thing is someone you care about, it might take longer to stop feeling that pain. If it was a total stranger, the pain might go away pretty fast.
Sometimes in our lives, we are experiencing too much stress, not enough sleep, too much meanness, not enough caring, and our lives just feel impossible to sustain. It is possible for life to cause your mind to be injured.
Most of your life, you have managed to juggle all these problems, and even enjoy yourself sometimes. Most of your life, when you felt down, even depressed, you didn’t like it, and you screwed up some things, even got in trouble for it, but somehow, you lived through that.
You may have thought about killing yourself before, or just wished you were dead. And you always managed to get past that feeling.
Almost everyone has a feeling sometimes, that they wish they could disappear, or that some kind of angel would come fix all their problems. More than 50% of young people have had the thought that they wanted to die. And yet, only about 0.007% have actually killed themselves.
If that is so, why does it seem like so many have committed suicide?
Really bad luck. In 2013, there were about 64 million Americans age 10 to 24, that’s 64,000,000. And only 4,600 in the whole country who died by committing suicide.
It seems like suicide is common, or it feels that way. And if you look up the statistics, suicide is the third most likely way for young people to die. But the first way young people die takes up 48% of deaths: by accident, mostly car accidents. Can you guess the second way?
Murder.
13% of the deaths of young people, are caused by homicide. Do you know anyone who has been murdered? If you do, that is uncommon. If you do know someone who was murdered, that could be part of why you are reading this. Experiencing terrible things like murder, really trips a person up. It messes with the fragile human mind. It injures the mind, as surely as being hit on the head with a bat. But the damage is not visible.
Of all the young people who died in 2013, only about 1 out of 8 of them died from killing themselves. About 11% of the deaths of young people, are from taking their own lives. .007% of people in America ages 10 to 24 die from suicide.
Why all the statistics? Because it is important for you to know that very few people kill themselves.
Some people who do kill themselves, think it is a reasonable way to escape their problems, because they know others who have done it. When you know people who have done something, it makes it seem more “reasonable.”
We’ve all heard of people who have done drugs, or gotten drunk, or been in car accidents, and did not die, so we imagine that these things aren’t very dangerous, or at least, if we do them, we won’t die from them. But most kids who do die, died in a car, or were doing drugs or alcohol, or some combination of those three.
Many people who survive these serious injuries, feel very lucky to be alive. And we hear about it. Most people who attempted suicide, and did not “succeed” also feel lucky to be alive. But they are tremendously embarrassed afterward, as are people who love them, and they often will not speak about it.
What brings a person to consider killing themselves as a way to fix their problems?
Wait, you already know.
People who imagine that suicide will fix their problems, are being confused by their minds.
If your mind is telling you that killing yourself is the best option available to you, that is a form of mental illness.
WAIT! Does this mean you are mentally ill? Isn’t “mental illness” something that looks like the insane villains in the movies? Almost never.
Mental illness is just as common as physical illness. Lots of people get a cold that lasts a week, and makes their bodies feel miserable until it passes. Some people get very sick, and must get help from a doctor. Some people need to be in a hospital. It depends how sick a person is. Mental illness is the same.
Did you ever hear of someone who committed a crime, and their lawyers claimed “temporary insanity”?
OK, maybe their lawyer is just trying to get a guilty person out of trouble. But some people do actually experience temporary mental illness, and in that moment of “insanity” did something really bad. Their minds had stopped functioning properly, for a brief period of time, due to some kind of mental or emotional shock or trauma. And in that brief period, a weapon was available, and they used it.
If they used it on someone else, and killed that person, it is called homicide, by reason of temporary insanity. That means, the killer was “not in their right mind” and was not properly aware of what they were doing,or of the consequences of what they were doing.
Many people who kill themselves are under stress for one or many reasons, but at the time that they actually do the deed of committing murder on themselves, they are not in their right mind.
Their mind tells them to do this, and if you asked them earlier if they should commit suicide, even if life was terrible, they would have been able to think it through, and realize that there is more to life than right now, and some day things will be better, but by kill themselves, things will never be better later.
Some people who kill themselves can actually hear a voice from their mind, telling them to kill themselves. It might even not sound like it is coming from inside. Minds are tricky. They can throw their voices sometimes. They can sound like more than one person, telling you what to do. A voice can lie, and tell you the voice is not from your mind at all, but from some outside power.
Such voices can feel confusing. That is a hint that it isn’t real.
If you get the impression that your mind (or a voice) is telling you to kill yourself, this means that you are sick with a mental illness.
Your mind might tell you that the “reason” you should kill yourself, is because of something that absolutely cannot be fixed. Maybe your parent died, or your pet. Maybe you failed a class, or got kicked out of college. Maybe you did something illegal and are going to get in trouble, even go to jail. Maybe someone you thought loved you, left you. And your mind is right, no one can fix that for you.
But what your mind is not right about, is that death is the proper way to respond to a life that has gone wrong.
It is often true that no one can help you make the thing that happened, not happen (or make the thing that didn’t happen, happen). What you need to know, is that there are people who can help you get through this terrible time, help you stay alive while you get help for your mentally ill mind, and then, help you build a life that is worth living.
In school, on suicide hotlines, on TV, they tell people all the time, “reach out for help, tell someone how you feel, and get help.” It is great advice for those who do not have a mind that is telling them that no one can possibly help them.
Not so useful when your mind tells you that no one can help, and if you ask someone for help, all that will happen is that they will fail, and then they will feel terrible, and it will be your fault.
People who commit suicide believe their minds that they should not let anyone know how they feel. And it makes sense: IF it is true that no one can help you, why ask for help?
Except that the logic is wrong.
It may be true that no one can fix the horrible things happening in your life, but the problem with the logic, is that the things happening in your life right now, are not a good reason to kill off the rest of your life.
You probably have more than a half century left in your life. Entire countries have recovered from being hated by the whole world in less time than that.
People who don’t succeed at school, or who go to jail, or have abusive parents, move on past those things, become adults, and go on to have lives. They find love. They accomplish things.
Only living people accomplish things. Anyone can accomplish something worthwhile. A young woman was sent to prison for three years, because she did something against the law. In prison, she decided to spend her time being a person that other people could talk to. Did she love being in prison? No. But she accomplished something that the other women in prison with her believed was very important. And when she got out of prison, she still had her life, and a lot of people who care about her.
Only living people can find love. If you do not know how to find love, that is something that people can help you with. Seriously. Counselors, teachers, congregations, there are people out there who it is their job to help others learn how to get along with others, and how to love and be loved.
Only living people can do things to try to make up for the wrongs they have done. Once you are dead, you cannot do anything good, to make up for the bad you may have done. If you are alive, but unable to do anything good right now, because you feel too terrible, that is something that someone can help you with. If you feel so mentally ill that you can’t even feed yourself, let alone do a good deed, then maybe you would benefit from spending some time in a hospital that is set up to help heal people from mental illness.
Are you angry? Is someone or something ruining your life? Don’t let them convince your mind that they are right that your life is not worth living. Talk to someone other than the person ruining your life, and tell them that you feel like your life is not worth living. Let someone else help you find what you need to get a life worth living.
If right now, you are not convinced that you have a life worth living, you may not remember a time when you did feel like life was worthwhile.
Do you remember any time that life was good? Did you ever smile before? Did anyone ever hug you? Did food ever taste good? You know that these things happened, even if right now you cannot remember them. That is a clue that your mind is playing a trick on you. Your mind is hiding the good things from you.
Remember how the mind doesn’t bother to keep you informed about everything it takes care of? Your mind is set to only inform you of what it decides you need to know. That means, when you are happy your mind doesn’t tell you much (if anything) about the things you are unhappy about. That’s why sometimes you can read a book or watch a show, and for a while completely forget about your own grief.
When your mind gets sick, and decides that death is the answer, it hides all the reasons you should live. It literally takes those memories and hides them from you.
Luckily, hiding so much information is hard, and after a while the mind isn’t able to maintain that kind of hard work. Sometimes, if you can stay with your suicidal feeling for a few hours, your mind will let something slip in, about how you know someone who will feel bad if you kill yourself. Or it might even take a couple weeks. But your mind is not perfect, and the happiness you have experienced in your life before now, is still there, and it will not stay hidden forever.
No matter how completely your mind is hiding your memories of anything good, of anyone who cares that you are alive, of any reason to stay alive to have the rest of your life to live, all that stuff is still there. Mental illness doesn’t destroy the memories, it only hides them.
Here’s the deal you can make with yourself: if I still feel like killing myself in a month, I can still do that then.
This can trick the mind into relaxing a bit. It gives you time to call a suicide hotline, or talk to someone who has told you they want you to talk to them. If your life is that terrible, and it will still be terrible in a month, you can do whatever you want during that month. Do you want to watch a show or eat a donut? Talk to someone you would never have the bravery to talk to? Ride a horse? Apply for a job? You can do any of these things, because none of it matters if it doesn’t work out, because you were going to kill yourself, and you can do that later if it all goes bad.
What is the trick?
The trick is, that most people who put off killing themselves, and start living, end up choosing to not kill themselves.
What if none of this makes sense, and you still feel like the best choice is to murder yourself?
Ask yourself these questions:
Do you know anyone?
Is it possible that someone you know might feel bad if you kill yourself?
Would you like to do something important some day?
Do you wish you felt happy?
Do you wish your life was better?
If you answered “No” to every one of those questions, get a phone, dial 911, and tell them that you are suicidal, and need someone to come to you right now. Yes, really.
If you answered anything even a little bit positive to any of those questions, then tell your mind to put off the suicide thing for now, because you have something to live for, even if that is impossible to believe.
Then call a suicide hotline instead of killing yourself. Any suicide hotline will do. But if you need one right now, and don’t know how to find one, use 1-800-273-8255 which will get you to the American National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
There are hotlines that are local, national, connected to specific groups, whatever you are looking for, it is probably out there. If you can’t find it yourself, call the National 800 number above, and tell them what kind of group you want, and they’ll help you find it.
Finally, if you have read all this, then you are my audience, dear reader. I am a writer, and without an audience, without a reader, my writing is nothing. You matter to me. Actually, you mattered to me before you even found this, that’s why I wrote it. I wish I could have read something like this, when I was young and suicidal. I believed that death would relieve me of my burdens. I didn’t understand that if my mind was telling me that, it meant there was something wrong with my mind. It took me a long time to find out that life is worthwhile, even when my mind tells me it isn’t. I have to remind myself of that sometimes. Minds are tricky things. Take care of yours, give it help when it gets confused, keep living, your life has meaning—even if you don’t know what that meaning is. Don’t worry about dying, that will take care of itself when it is time. For now, live.
Courage–You can do this.
Courage 
My only lifeline right now is that I wanna go to Disneyland again, I wanna spend more time with my family and best friends before I go, and that I want to read my FutureMe letter that’s set to come back in a week. I don’t wanna cry anymore and holding back tears didn’t help. I don’t want to miss my ex anymore and even if he loves me he’s never coming back. I don’t want to be holed up in my room for another week straight anymore. I’m tired of all of this and I really don’t think it will get better. I start gambling with myself as part of some sick sense of humor. Like sometimes I’ll say “if I burn my toast today I’m gonna do it” or “if I find so and so’s post in my feed today I’m gonna do it.” They won’t have anything to do with my suicidal issues, but I’ll place bets that determine if I’m gonna do it. I don’t have a PLAN plan but I’ve laid out generally what I wanna do to do it. And when I picture it all I see is my mom finding me there. That usually stops me. Idk. It’s the ass crack of midnight right now I don’t know why I’m typing this for an audience of 2 year old comments. It’s not my last resort but it’s something like that. This took it off my mind. Whoever wrote this genuinely matters to me. If I were you I’d be pretty upset to know someone I wrote this for was dead at their own hand, even though you wouldn’t find out. Weirdly it’s comforting.
I’m glad you wrote, Kaitlyn.
When I was 12 years old I sat on top of my roof and thought about the letters I would have to write to my best friend if I killed myself so they wouldn’t feel responsible. The more I thought about writing to my friend, the longer and more complicated the letter in my mind got. At some point I felt like it was just too much, I could never write anything that long, and so I gave up the idea of suicide.
It wasn’t the last time I considered killing myself. Sometimes it was harder to overcome, but I’ve lived for over half a century, and I can tell you, every decade is better–even though some days/weeks/months are painful. Proof that folks like you and me who have that tendency to feel like the only way to escape the pain is to kill ourselves, can recover from those times, survive and thrive.
I absolutely promise you, feeling like your life will never recover from how bad you feel about it now, is a lie. Those thoughts mean your mind is struggling and needs help. It’s so hard to manage this by yourself, but there are so many ways to get help immediately! If you like the idea of writing, you could try https://www.crisistextline.org/ Or if want someone to talk to, you can call a toll-free number, but there’s a new way to call, you can literally dial just 988 in every state in the U.S. https://988lifeline.org/
Get help, my Dear. You deserve help, and there are people out there who are ready and waiting to help you.
I started crying as soon as I read the first line. One of my friends sent this to me and honestly I needed it.
I hate saying this but… Im struggling with anorexia. I absolutely hate myself and feel like I should just… idk like not exist. I’ve thought about suicide before. I don’t ever feel happy. I fake it in front of my family and friends but I just don’t feel like life is worth living anymore. I started cutting myself because I feel like it relieves some of the pain. It provides a distraction at least.
The friend who sent this to me has started noticing what I’ve been doing. She pulled me aside and lunch yesterday and told me ‘lyssa please eat. You’re slowly killing yourself’ I just looked at her and said ‘yea I know’
Anyways she sent this to me today and honestly I really needed it. ugh I’m still crying.
Sorry for that long comment. But I guess I’m just trying to say thank you. I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of this for a while. But thank you so freaking much
Sounds like you have a good friend, Alyssa.
Sometimes, knowing you have a friend who cares what happens to you–even, or maybe especially, when you don’t care about yourself–can be the thing that keeps you going.
When I was in middle school, some decades ago, I felt like there was no reason for me to keep living. I sat down and thought about the letters I would have to write to the people I knew loved me (my best friend, my grandmother, one of my teachers) so that they wouldn’t feel bad about me killing myself. I thought through what I could write…well, a long time. Finally, I decided I just could never write all that much, and I could kill myself another time.
Joke was on me, I suppose. I felt I couldn’t write all those long letters because I was not a good writer, and couldn’t figure out how to help people feel better. What happened? I became a writer and a therapist. Pretty funny, really.
I’m sorry you feel so terrible. Anorexia is often a sign that someone feels like they are not in control of their life, like not eating is the only thing they can really control. Please do talk to someone. You are not alone, no matter how much it feels like you are. Being a teen who is sensitive is a hard time in life, but this will not be the way you feel forever. If you can survive being a teen in a pandemic, you can survive anything.
Live really will get better. I promise. If you stay alive, you will grow up, you will not be dependent on your parents, you will get to make more of your own decisions, and you will have more friends who love you. I know, because anyone who has a friend like you described, is someone who has the skills to make good friends.
Now…what were you saying about writing too much? Thank you for writing Alyssa. I’m glad what I wrote helped you.
Hugs.
Having lost my daughter to a woman that is teaching her to hate my race, I worry and hate myself for allowing this to happen. I’ve lived in fear for years and the local authorities don’t take DV against men seriously. Being a gentle man of mixed race leaves me nowhere to belong here and now. I and my son are intelligent and soulful assets to humanity, but there is little place for that in such a brutish world. I try to love and appreciate my time as a human being, but sometimes it’s just too tragic.
I appreciate this writing for telling me that I have a faulty mind, but I have not been able to connect with intelligent and compassionate mental health and well being techs to support my efforts at peace. I’ll keep looking and hoping for a technician to help me name and support my resolution of the things that are blocking my spirit.
It’s tiring like being in the middle of the ocean and just treading water. I keep at it for my kids. I’ve heard the kill voice. I named him Mr Slick. I survived by having the pity i would have on my son if he ever showed up looking as bad as I feel.
I used to be a chocolatier and I raised a kind and good son. I hope I get to be my daughters dad too.
I needed somebody to know for some reason. Feels weird.
I wish someone who talked like you were working in my town.
RTD, I wish you peace in the middle of this storm.
Having someone know your story is important. Finding someone to talk to helps for many reasons, that one included. Regarding finding someone to talk to in your town–please know that most therapists have moved to accepting clients using videochat since the pandemic started. That means you can find someone anywhere in your whole state. The pandemic will eventually end, but I think therapists working remotely will continue.
Blessings,
Shulamit
Thank you very much for this post. It have made me more alive..(for some time at least) i’m 26 years old male and have abusive parents with whom I do not know how to communicate..also have difficulties to keep a job (have a CS degree, but poor interpersonal skills),have a very small circle of friends(2). My main concern when I move from parents will be to set some goals to achieve, but don’t know much strength will be needed and for how long..I do not live in US and do not have many options what to do with my life..Sorry if it was inappropriate to write that here..I desperately want someone to help me, but i feel that I have too many things to discuss about and don’t know from where to start and how can that person keep track of all those things..
Rand123, if there are therapists where you live, assume they have been trained to be able to keep track of things their clients say.
It is a common concern from clients that their problems are too complex for anyone to help them. And it is true you will probably have to speak with a few before you find one that understands you.
Do ask your two friends if they think you could get benefit from meeting with a therapist, and if even one of them agrees, maybe that person would help you find a therapist. Abusive parents are terrible–they will keep making you think that life is too hard. Life is hard, but it is not too hard, but the only way to feel that, is to get away from them.
If you have a CS degree, there will be jobs. In the US, there are more jobs than people who can take them, so companies hire new grad employees a year–or more–before the student has even graduated.
Having trouble communicating is definitely something that makes it hard to get a job, but if your skills in CS are good, then include these two pieces of information in your applications: “I’m excellent at skills 1, 2, and 3, but I am extremely introverted. Willing to work long hours, where I am working independently most of the time.” Or something like that, according to what is appropriate to your culture.
If you have great CS skills, pay someone to make your resume look good, and then apply to everything available. Check out https://triplebyte.com/ and see if you can qualify on their quiz.
If your CS skills are just average, consider applying to a job that only pays enough to move out, and work at improving your skills on the job. To get that kind of job may mean you move. Moving away from abusive parents is a huge relief. I know–I did that. They had me believing I was unlovable. I wasn’t. Neither are you.
The only goals you need when you first move out, are a job that has good health insurance and pays enough to be able to support yourself without having to ask them for help. If you can do that, then you will have the space to start interviewing therapists, and you will eventually find one that works for you.
After you have gotten a decent job, moved out, are supporting yourself, and have a therapist who works for you, then you can begin to work on the next goals.
You do not need more goals than that right now.
Courage…you can do this.
Good article. I will still kill myself one day (even if it’s true that my mind is sick, that sickness is still an objective reality regardless of whether it’s rational, and I’ve already reached out for help, which didn’t work despite the fact that my therapist was exceptional and I’ve tried medication) but I appreciate the effort and empathy. Thanks for that.
“Objective reality” means a reality that is concretely true, from any perspective. Like, if the car has no gasoline in it, it is objectively out of gas. No matter what opinion anyone may have, it is measurably out of gas.
When the mind tells you that you should die, that is the definition of a “subjective reality.” You, the subject, are the only person who perceives it that way.
Please do look into new treatments. For example, transcranial magnetic stimulation (I know it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s real) here’s a link: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/about/pac-20384625 or ketamine https://www.yalemedicine.org/stories/ketamine-depression/ .
Mental illness is often well treated with talk therapy, but sometimes it really requires serious medical intervention. I hope you can get help from one of these new treatments. I’ve seen people who were depressed for decades get some relief from each of these treatments, and there are some others around. These are the two I’ve personally been impressed with for intractable depression.
Wishing you peace, Eli.
Shulamit
This doesn’t change my mind in the slightest. Just meaningless words.
And what is your mind telling you, that hasn’t changed?
This is a really well-put article. I really liked the Dr. Seuss part, got me hooked on reading the whole thing. Keep on writing. You are doing a great job helping people who need it! 🙂
Thank you!
Thank-you, Shulamit. You saved me.
Reblogged this on The Peasant Blog and commented:
Suicide is the commonest cause of death of men under the age of 35 in the UK and I believe that more work should be done to help these vulnerable people. This post really struck a chord after I lost a good friend to suicide earlier in the year, and if me re-blogging it goes even 0.1% of the way towards preventing a single suicide then it is time well spent. It’s time the elephant in the room is addressed and the people struggling know that there is support available. For UK readers please check This link for help options.
thank you is all I need to say, thank you so much…
Found this through Quora and it struck a chord because I do have moods like that. My friends have moods like that. Sometimes rare, sometimes often. One friend actually said as much this morning. They all differ. I don’t really live my life for myself anymore. I’ve been crushed so many times that it’s easier to live for other people. I’m going to try and crank some life back into what kind of person I want to be. It just takes time. Until then, I have the support of my friends, and I support them when they need it.
Thank you for the good read, and it was very thought provoking.
Thanks for this thoughtful meditation to read, and forever hold in our ‘mental toolboxes’— whether for ourselves or others in need.
Thank you for writing this.
My friend killed herself on Aug 26,2015.
We were chatting on fb that morning. I sort of blamed myself for getting off messenger (I was working)i thought – maybe if I didn’t stop talking to her she wouldn’t have killed herself.
Besides how could she kill herself when she had five kids, the youngest of which was 2?
One year later, I’m feeling quite shitty. Pregnant, jobless, and having relationship problems with my baby daddy.. I fear the prospect of being a single mom at 32 when I’m back living with my parents.
Killing myself crossed my mind. I have an unborn baby and I felt guilty immediately for even entertaining such thoughts. Then I remembered my friend. Now I understand – – – sometimes having kids aren’t enough. When there is nothing to look forward to, when everyday is a drag, when you find yourself crying every single day, when problems just seem insurmountable …
I’m not going to kill myself now. Because you’re right, I can do that tomorrow, next week next month or after the baby’s born. It’s not hard to kill myself at all, so why the rush? . It feels like I’ve hardly anything to lose, so it’s a good time to try. If I fail, so what?? I’m going to kill myself anyway right. Surely it can’t be worse.
When you hit rock bottom, I’m hoping that there’s no other way to go but up, up, up.
And then maybe it’s not so bad.
You aren’t alone.
Neither am I.
Thank you, Trish. You’re right, we are not alone. Even when it feels that way.
I can’t believe this insightful, powerful article has not gone viral and taken over the internet! Thank you for your compassion, caring, and solid reasoning. The stats astound me. I know four people who killed themselves. Two who died in car accidents. None who were murdered. So I am surprised to hear that suicide is actually quite rare. And I appreciate the value in ‘not believing everything your mind tells you’…it’s just that, in the emotional mental fog of the dark place, it is very hard to remember such illuminating messages. Maybe that is why people get tattoos. Maybe I should go get that one! I hope this article is read by millions…or at least the 50,000 a year who need it most.
Blessings.
Thank you.
It IS really hard to remember when our minds are in that dark place. I have enough years of life that I can remember being in the darkest places, places I was certain could not be exited, and yet, I did exit them.
I have learned that the best way to be able to remember “this, too, shall pass” is to practice remembering when I am NOT in a dark place. It takes practice. If we forget to make conscious our appreciation of the blessings in life, we can too easily forget them when we’re down. Appreciation of life takes practice. Between practicing remembering what is good, and practicing remembering what we have survived and overcome, we build up resilience for the dark times.
Bessings, Sarah.
Thank you
Fantastic post for someone like me, who has considered and attempted suicide twice about 10 years ago. Gives me hope and happiness to know someone out there understands this horrid state of being. I am re-blogging this so others can read it and know we are not “crazy” people, just tortured souls who sometimes cannot stand one more minute of torture.
I’m glad you are still here.
Thank you. Doing well – so far, so good.
It’s a little bit repetitive and does not actually answers the main question that lead me to reading this: why ? Why want to accomplish anything, want to find love, make up for something ? ( I am in my early 30ies so it’s not a “teen figuring life thingy) The problem is that the ultimate bad things that can happen in your life (death of people you care about) are permanent while positive things are transitory by their nature. Life is rather unpleasant affair in general, I think I am stable now but I have a couple of people I care about, I didn’t choose to care, but since it happened I try not cause too much problems while they are around. Death is bad, never ever existing ( which is obviously not an option anymore) is not, I don’t like the former but think that the later is actually preferable to life.
…because I was mentally exhausted and much of the stuff this guy said. I was too tired to keep pushing back.
Meditate upon the following saying:
“Why eat cake if I’ll end up with nothing?”
Also look up and play “Potatoman finds the Troof”
Wowa..I’m not even sure what to say. Was surfing on Quora, and this link popped up in between words. It is going to be perhaps the thing that will forever help me through tuff times. a couple of weeks ago-give or take- I really, like so much wanted to throw myself in a river and be done with it. Spent a few hours thinking about it, days and eventually when I was all alone and meditating, a lock opened up in my mind, and in that moment I saw my dreams, literally manifesting themselves in my eyes(am 18) and I could not imagine a world without “me”..Lol.
Anyways, u were so inspiring in that article, glad u passed through all the suicidal thoughts, and came up with something so special for broken souls.
Right, see ya
“Test to see whether your mission on earth is completed: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” ~Richard Bach
You are here, and no one else is or ever will be you. You are absolutely right–you belong in this world.
Ahhh – one of my most favorite authors is that Richard Bach. His smallish books mean much more than their size. Love his work.
I just wanted to let you know that I think this is beautiful, and I hope it saves some lives (I’m not suicidal myself, this was linked somewhere else I was reading).
Thank you, Michelle. I do hope people who are not suicidal will read it, and use it as a resource if they find they know someone who is.
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Thanks so much for this post. I love that it teaches us about how our thoughts and how they can mislead us. The core of me becoming organized involves this same process on a much smaller scale every day.
Thanks
Robin
Thank you, Robin. Minds want to make things better, but don’t always know how to do that. Sometimes brains have to speak up!
My brother Keith always says, he doesn’t ask himself if he wants to–for example–take out the trash now, instead he asks himself, “Will I be happier later, if I take out the trash now, or if I leave it piling up.”
Because the answer to “do I want to do this boring, yucky job now?” is always, “No.”
But the answer to the second question, is often, “Yes.”
Framing is everything. And knowing our minds can–and will–frame things wrong, is important.
Shu,
Excellent. I plan on sharing. Take care of S
Thank you, Sally.
Thank you, Jill and Suzy. I hope people will share it.
Strong stuff, very well considered and presented. Thank you for publishing this; I hope many will read it.
Good post Shu!