Help with thoughts of suicide

This pop-up reproduces 4 pages from the main Students Against Depression website focusing on understanding and surviving suicidal thoughts.

Go to the main site pages for links to other information about depression (underlined words indicated topics covered on other pages).

• Desperate right now?
• Thinking about suicide
• Making sense of suicide
• Surviving suicidal thoughts

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Desperate right now?

What to do if you are feeling actively suicidal now:

• Make a deal with yourself that you will not act just yet.
• Tell someone else how you are feeling or find someone to be with you.
• If that is not possible right now, phone an all-hours contact
  (if you have a shared phone find a phone box):

  Samaritans - 24 hrs trained listening service	08457 90 90 90
  NHS - 24 hrs medical advice and support
  NHS Direct (England & Wales)	08 45 46 47
  NHS 24 (Scotland)	08454 242424
  Or phone your local GP's out of hours service
  Nightline - all night student listening service	See your campus website
  Get connected - info about local counselling services for under 25s (free for mobile phones)	0808 808 4994
  International email and phone help details	www.befrienders.org

• Do something to distract yourself from your thoughts
  - watch TV or a DVD; read a book; write in a diary; tidy your room or sort out a pile of papers etc.

Other things to consider:

• Challenge yourself about what is stopping you seeking help.
• Make an emergency appointment with your doctor.
• Read more about surviving suicidal thoughts and other info on this site about suicide (see below)
• Consider making an appointment at your campus counselling service.
• Read about how others have dealt with their suicidal thoughts (see real student stories).

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Thinking about suicide

Pain and desperation

Thoughts about suicide can reflect the intense pain and sense of desperation that depression can bring. Having the thoughts can also in itself bring much pain and anguish.

Also common

However, it is important to be aware that thoughts about suicide can be quite common - one way in which the mind tests out feelings. Having suicidal thoughts does not mean you are doomed to act on them!

Bottom of the depression habit spiral

A series of many little things can contribute to a depression habit spiral which leads downward to suicidal thinking. Depressed thinking habits bring about a narrowed perspective which significantly clouds one's judgment. This tunnel vision reduces the ability to find complex, rather than all-or-nothing, solutions to problems.

Ultimate form of depressed thinking

The issue of suicide can be hotly debated. Some argue that suicide is a result of depression and should always be treated; others argue that the freedom to choose is everyone's right, but... Someone affected by depression is usually not in a position to make a free and unbiased decision about suicide. Thinking about suicide is the ultimate all-or-nothing thinking habit - the idea that only total relief will provide any relief from the painful despair depression brings.

A habit needing challenging

You can learn how to ride out your suicidal thoughts, reduce their frequency and eventually stop them bothering you. Surviving suicidal thoughts means challenging and resisting them, just like other habits of depressed thinking. Sometimes, making sense of suicide also requires a critical evaluation of some of the social and cultural influences on our thinking (see depression in context).

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Making sense of suicide

A taboo subject

Suicide is a highly emotive subject, still often treated as taboo in most cultures. This means that thinking about suicide can leave someone feeling very isolated and alone. It also means that even though it is fairly common, of all the forms of depressed thinking, suicidal thinking is least likely to be aired, discussed and critically evaluated.

Deadly tunnel vision

Isolation and painful despair in conjunction with depressed thinking habits make for a very risky combination. Suicidal thinking often arises out of hopelessness about being able to overcome difficult life problems. When someone is desperate for relief from suffering, yet stuck in tunnel vision at the bottom of the depression habit spiral, they are less able to apply problem-solving skills and are vulnerable to the deadly over-simplification of suicidal thinking.

So how do we make sense of suicide?

Several different paths of thought can lead in the direction of suicide. All are distorted by the narrowed perspective of depressed thinking habits:

• "How bad am I feeling?"

  People often first think about suicide not so much as an immediate option, but more as a kind of ‘barometer' to measure how bad they're feeling. When you are feeling very low, it can seem comforting to recognise that you do not feel quite low enough to commit suicide. This is a very risky habit, because repetition of the thought brings a seemingly comforting familiarity and dulls the initial instinctive recoil from danger.

• "Am I a coward or a hero?"

  Debate over whether suicide is heroic or cowardly is another irrelevant over-simplification. This kind of all-or-nothing thinking diverts attention from more complex solutions to the problems which have lead to the suicidal thinking in the first place.

• "I've got to sort it out on my own"

  An over-emphasis on individualism, common in western cultures, creates barriers to help-seeking. Over-valuing 'independence' means that when someone can't find their own solution to their problems suicide becomes the only 'answer'. Yet many people can be, and have been, helped to survive suicidal thinking and overcome depression.

• "Won't they be better off without me?"

  One angle on suicide focuses on its self-sacrificial aspect, not wanting to be a burden. Yet the distorted perspective of believing that ‘they'll be better off without me' tends to be greeted with stunned bewilderment and terrible pain by those who will supposedly be 'better off'.

• "I'll show them!"

  For some, the desire to cause this pain and bewilderment, or at least to have people take them seriously, is a strong motivation. This is the ultimate in cutting off your nose to spite your face - again an over-simplified solution to the complex problem of engaging in meaningful relationships.

• Copycat suicide

  It is an unfortunate phenomenon that one suicide can sometimes seem to create a kind of domino effect, sparking off a series of suicides in the affected community. More commonly, a suicide in the community is shocking enough to jolt support networks into action for others.

• "What's the point to life anyway?"

  Pervading cynicism in modern societies creates a strongly depression-inducing cultural context. Cynicism denigrates all that is constructive and hopeful and drains away the meaning from life. Depression and suicidal thinking thrive in the vacuum left when people stop investing hope in their lives.

Depression and the meaning of life

Pain, suffering and the inevitability of death are profoundly difficult issues not just for individuals but for all of humanity. See the page on depression and the meaning of life for more discussion of how depression and suicidal thinking might be the starting point on a path of addressing the ‘big questions' in your life in a more meaningful way.

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Surviving suicidal thoughts

Needing relief from pain

Suicidal intentions are prompted by a desperate need for relief from intensely painful feelings. Surviving suicidal thoughts is about learning how to find relief without resorting to suicide.

A risky habit

Simply having suicidal thoughts does not mean you will act on them. However, the habit of repeatedly thinking about suicide is a risky one. Repetition brings a sense of falsely comforting familiarity. It dulls the instinctive recoil from danger.

Strategies

• Make a commitment to yourself

  Challenge the self-bullying habit and make a commitment to taking care of yourself as best you possibly can for the moment.

• Reduce the risks

  Protect yourself from impulsively acting on your thoughts by putting dangerous objects out of immediate reach. Preferably give pills, weapons etc to someone else for safe-keeping, but even putting them in a locked or inaccessible place makes it a little harder to act impulsively.

• Tell someone how you're feeling

  Tell someone else how you are feeling and get appropriate help. You may need to challenge yourself about what's stopping you getting help. Be prepared for non-professionals to be shocked by what you tell them, and don't expect a ˜perfect' response it is always better to make human contact than to stay isolated and alone with your thoughts.

• Check medication side effects

  Be aware that some anti-depressant medication can increase the risk of suicidal thinking, especially when you first start taking them. Also, when the medication first starts taking effect it can increase your energy and motivation before improving your mood, increasing the risk of acting on suicidal thoughts. Talk to your doctor about the risks and be extra vigilant with other strategies for keeping yourself safe.

• Check alchohol and drugs

  Both alcohol and drugs tend to reduce your inhibitions and make it more likely you could do something you will regret the next day. Check your alcohol/drug consumption and try to cut down. Try not to drink alone or to end up alone after drinking.

• Give yourself small goals

  Each evening set yourself small tasks or goals for the next day. It can be something as simple as watching a certain TV programme. Or set yourself another task as soon as you have completed one. Just knowing you can still do things you set for yourself despite feeling low can help combat depression.

• Minimise time spent alone

  Depression and suicidal thinking thrive in isolation. Try to minimise time spent alone in your room - take work to the library, ask friends to be with you at vulnerable times, make plans ahead for weekends and other lonelier times, generally work on building your support networks.

• Understand some of the reasons for suicidal thinking

  Because suicide is such a taboo, you may not be aware of how common it is for people to think about suicide and of the various general reasons for suicidal thinking. Read about making sense of suicide and assess your own suicidal thinking habit to identify which are relevant to you.

• Identify depressed thinking habits

  Suicidal thinking is the ultimate all-or-nothing thinking habit, and the culmination of other habits of depressed thinking which intensify the depression habit spiral. Learn how to challenge depressed thinking.

• Start breaking the suicidal thinking habit

  We can't stop thoughts from entering our heads, but we can stop actively inviting them in. Try to stop using thoughts of suicide as a barometer for how bad you are feeling. Use distraction techniques (see focusing outward) when you notice thoughts about suicide bothering you, or practise other techniques for challenging depressed thinking.

• Work on rebuilding meaning in your life

  Depression works to drain assumed meaning out of life and challenges us to take responsibility for making our lives meaningful. Challenge the cynicism or perfectionism which may be preventing you from embracing hopeful or constructive ideals and goals for your life.

What now?

Learn more about depression by closing this popup window and going to the main Students Against Depression site. You may wish to print off these pages to keep with you and reflect upon.