TW: Suicidal ideation
Hi Anon,
Right now, I am more worried about you. The way you are talking about yourself worries me because you say you’re “not a safe person” and you’re “scared [you] might do something.” If you are going through difficult things right now, I would urge you to reach out to someone who can help: a friend, loved one, relative, doctor, teacher, counselor, etc. If you can’t promise your friend that you can stay safe, then actions need to be taken to help you feel better and get back on your feet. Your well-being is just as important as your friend’s. Both of you cannot help each other until you have helped yourselves.
Suicide Prevention
- Help Guide A site containing articles to help understand, help numbers, “tool kits”, and self help.
- Mental Help A site that has basic information, resources, articles, and a list of books that might be helpful.
- Volunteers of America Learn information about suicide, understanding suicide, and handling suicidal threats.
- Feeling Suicidal? Please take a moment to read this post on how to cope with suicidal thoughts.
- Want to help someone who is feeling suicidal? This post on suicide prevention might help.
- The international association for suicide prevention is dedicated to preventing suicidal behavior and alleviating it’s effects. It also has links to forums.
Helping a friend
- Want to help a friend with a mental illness or disorder? This post provides some great tips.
- Want to help a friend or loved one with Social Anxiety? This post provides some great tips.
- How to help a friend experiencing an anxiety or panic attack.
- Helping a friend who has an eating disorder.
- Living with & Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder
- NAMI guide on helping a struggling friend
- Helping a friend or family member
- 9 things not to say to someone with mental illness
- ActiveMinds guide to helping a friend you’re worried
- More tips on helping a friend
Getting & talking to a therapist
- This post on picking a therapist has some great tips.
- This is a step by step on getting a therapist.
- Psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist or counsellor?
- 50 Signs of Good Therapy
- Having issues with therapy? Here are 50 Warning Signs of Questionable Therapy
- 21 Tips for getting the most out of each therapy session
- 6 Ways to open up to your therapist
- What should happen in a session
- 5 Tips on how to talk about yourself in therapy
I hope this helps you.
Best,
Lena
Tag: suicide
“No one will miss me”, “I’m better off dead”
When I worked at a non-profit that handled suicide prevention, I had access to the donation records. Each month, a specific man donated 15$ to our organization. It was like clockwork.. same day, same man, he had been doing this for over 4 years. It always seemed odd to me but I never questioned it… until I saw a note attached one month. “For Noah- Dad”
his donation was once his child’s allowance.
I can promise you, they would miss you for the rest of their lives.
Wow.
That is a really, really, powerful statement about human nature.
Consequences of Suicide within Pagan Religions
Consequences of Suicide within Pagan Religions
TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of suicide
NOTE: If you are depressed and contemplating suicide, please, please get help. If you have a trusted friend or family member, counselor, teacher, etc… that you can talk to, do so. Otherwise (in the US) you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or chat online with someone who can help via IMAlive or CrisisChat. For international assistance you can check the International Suicide Prevention wiki for resources. No matter how bad things may seem right now, they will eventually get better. Taking your own life is not the best solution, and there are people out there who can help.~*~
Hello, I’ve had this question for a few months now and I’m still trying to find the right way to ask about it. I’ve been looking up people to ask, but it never seems to work. When I found you, I got excited. If you commit Suicide, will you not be welcomed in by the Great Mother and Great Father? I’ve been told that if you commit suicide out of Deep Depression, you wont be loved or forgiven by the divine. I’m sorry if the question makes you feel uncomfortable, but I had to ask.
Thank you.
Don’t Call Robin Williams’ Death a Waste
Suicide isn’t “giving up” or “giving in.” Suicide is a terrible decision made by someone whose pain is so great that they can no longer hold it, and feel they have no other option in life but to end it. It’s a decision you can’t t…When people describe a suicide as a ‘waste’ IDK it pushes buttons inside me. When I was younger, and when I was so depressed I was considering suicide, my primary reason was feeling like I was already a waste – a waste on peoples’ time, a waste on their resources, a waste of their affection. I’d been convinced that I was completely selfish, that I took and took without giving back, and that I only caused misery to others by being alive because I was so thoughtless. I was convinced that, after a brief mourning period, their lives would be better if I wasn’t around to ruin them anymore.
Now I’m an adult and I understand that when a thirteen-year-old feels that way, it’s because the adults in their life have failed them. Kids, as we say in the SPN fandom, are supposed to eat your food and break your heart. A teenager being self-absorbed is developmentally normal, especially when that teenager is being relentlessly bullied, is friendless, is struggling with school, and otherwise has plenty of misery going on in their own lives that prevents them from being terribly interested in other peoples’. I stopped being suicidal when someone told me it was okay to care about myself first. I had literally never heard that before. I thought I had to justify my own existence. I thought if I wasn’t satisfying other people, if I wasn’t making other people happy, then I didn’t deserve to live.
When people talk about ‘waste’, what are we wasting? Are we wasting their time by forcing them to grieve? Are we wasting their resources by demanding their attention? ”You’re wasting the rest of your lives”. Okay, fine, but they’re OUR lives. They aren’t yours. You aren’t entitled to them. You don’t get to obligate us to continue in misery because our deaths would affect YOU. People who say suicide is selfish, or a pointless waste, make me furious because they want us to just continue living on in abject misery, the kind of misery that makes us literally want to die… why? Because they’re entitled to us? Because we owe it to them? Because their discomfort is worth more than our agony?
I don’t support suicide. I don’t want anyone to commit suicide. But I understand why. And I understand that half the time, the people who claim people who kill themselves are wasting their lives, or being selfish, don’t actually have any interest in fixing the real problems, because that’s too much work; it costs too much; it requires too much time and too much care. If you actually cared about helping people who are in agony, you wouldn’t call them selfish for wanting to escape it, and you wouldn’t call that escape a ‘waste’. You’d call it a tragedy, because whatever could have been done to make life bearable HERE was not done. A solution was not found. The pain was not eased. And only one escape was left.
I’m still depressed, but I’m better now. I haven’t been in a suicidal state for more than ten years. I was able to change my circumstances enough that the people who had instilled those toxic beliefs in me no longer had control over me, and I had a daemon at my side reminding me that it is okay, that it is healthy, to care about my own self-interest. Now my husband is in the hospital because, like Robin, he is bipolar. He’s been depressed, without a manic swing, for three months, and it’s only getting worse. He’s hurting himself, and he’s looking for a way out. But he has a way out that isn’t killing himself – there is a good hospital close to us where he knows the doctors and feels comfortable, where they will listen to him and adjust his medication. He has a wife and a son who understand his illness, who support him and NEVER blame him, and who will gladly take on the challenge of handling his affairs in his absence because we are his team, and we are on his side.
Despite all this, I honestly believe I’ll lose him one day. It gets worse, it doesn’t get better. The progression of his condition has been so severe over the course of six years that I’m scared to contemplate where we’ll be in ten. And I’m resigned to that. I accept it. I love him for the time he’s here, and I want to ease as much of his pain as it’s in my power to do. I’m furious that I’m so impotent and I can’t do more because when you love someone you don’t want them to suffer.
Robin Williams was in pain. Now he isn’t anymore. I’m grieved for the suffering he endured, and for his family and friends who are suffering now. Losing a battle like this is terrible and tragic and heartbreaking. We all wish we could have done better by him. And if you want others to avoid following his example, we need to do better by them. We have to ease the pain HERE. We have to make good care accessible to them HERE. We have to fight stigma and support members of our community HERE. It may not always end up being enough, because most of the time it gets worse, not better. But we should do it because people are suffering, and they need help, and they don’t have to earn the right to their own existence. They don’t owe us their suffering. We owe them relief.
On the passing of heroes.
I decided to become a comedian at the age of 14. At that point I didn’t know how to be one—but I was eager to learn.
One of the first things I did was visit my local Blockbuster videotape rental store. Turn right as you enter, head to the middle section directly after the really old action movies, and there would be a small series of shelves dedicated to stand up comedy specials.
My comedy masterclass all contained on analog magnetic tape.
Robin Williams had 3 specials available at my Blockbuster. They were the first ones I chose to watch. Sometimes I would question that decision because it was a bit like wanting to learn science and starting with quantum physics. I had never seen a mind work so quickly. He was a world class performer. His timing was perfect. His delivery was spot on. And he adjusted to the audience without missing a beat. He was an inspiration. I still use many of the things I learned from him in my work today. I owe a lot of my success to his teachings.
Like Mr. Williams, I suffer from the same chemical imbalance. My brain is sick and I have been struggling with that illness for many years. At one point I very nearly made the same decision he did. At the time I saw it as the only escape from my suffering. I was able to choose life and move forward, but it was not an easy choice to make by any means. I was facing a lifetime of illness. I could not leave my home. My friends had given up on me. The loneliness was unbearable. I was so incredibly tired. The exhaustion never stopped. Not even for a second.
And to me, the most disheartening reality… I could no longer perform.
The dream I had since I was 14 was no longer possible.
My anchor to this mortal coil was the love I had for my parents. The most amazing two people in my life. Their unending love and support kept me here. I feel so lucky to have that anchor. I’m so grateful to still be around.
I just want to say that I understand the choice Robin Williams made. The choice that countless others have made. I wish with all my heart that they could have chosen to keep going. But I refuse to demonize them or call them selfish for letting go.
A sick brain is one of the most formidable foes in existence. I know for many blessed with health that is difficult to understand. But I assure you this disease is dangerous and pervasive and sometimes it is fatal. Suicide is not about being selfish. It is not about having a weak will.
Your own brain deceives you. It convincingly whispers that all hope is lost. It tells you there is no way to elude the anguish. It blocks your view of all other options and makes you think there is only one method of escape. Only one solution to end this pain. It silences the logical mind that knows that there are other options. It makes you truly believe that you cannot be helped.
I think if certain people could experience this illness, if only for a moment, they might be surprised how strong people with depression actually are. Maybe they could realize how hard people fought to stay alive as long as they did. They might discover it is less of a choice and more of a battle.
To those in the throes of depression… I ask you to keep fighting. I ask you to keep living. Being on the other side of my decision I was able to gain important wisdom I wish I knew beforehand. Contentment is not being happy all of the time. It is learning to cope with the hardships in between the bits of joy. It is not taking the bits of joy for granted when they come. And contentment is still possible even with a sick brain.
If you keep going, you will feel joy again. And you will feel great sadness again. You will feel everything in between. I make no guarantees of ever achieving a perfect, happy life.
Just know that there is help. There is hope. I promise if you seek care and find a doctor your trust, they can help you work through this illness and learn to cope with it. If you put in the work, you will have bits of joy. You will have moments that make life worth living. One day you will look back and be grateful you stuck around to experience the good, no matter how hard coping with the bad may have been.
I will miss Robin Williams dearly. He was the greatest mentor I have never met. He had a beautiful brain with a tragic flaw. My hope is that his passing will bring awareness to the true nature of mental illness. That it will help relieve the stigma surrounding it. That it will inspire others to find better ways to treat it. I think that would be a most fitting tribute to a man that brought the world many a smile.
My heart is with all who have lost loved ones to depression. Giant Frogman bear-hugs to all of you.
I wrote a bit more about depression here. If you need help, it might be a good place to start.
I just can’t right now.
My childhood idol is gone. In the worst possible way.
It hurts to know that he was suffering so much and all the people who love him all over the world couldn’t reach out to help him because his suffering was in silence.
Depression doesn’t have to take your life. If you’re suffering reach out. Please! Reach out to those you know love you. Reach out to anyone you can. If all else fails call a hotline. It doesn’t have to take you.
Don’t let it take you as it’s taken him.
Gods forgive me but I wish it had been an overdose. At least then I could hope it had been accidental.
I’m on mom duty so I can’t even grieve but the tears just keep coming.
Gods Robin, I’m so sorry. Rest easy your suffering is over.
The number of high profile deaths recently relating back to addiction and mental health issues is absolutely devastating; those struggling should be met with kindness and understanding, not stigma and hate.
For anyone out there battling demons such as these, know that you are not alone and you deserve to be helped and to be loved.
Tumblr, you’re doing something right.
This is what happens when you search the tag suicide, depressed, self harm, and eating disorder. To anyone struggling with any of these things, please reach out and seek help.
You are worth it and you deserve it.
Also, please reblog this so more people can see this. It could save a life.
Holding the Bowl 