The popular image of someone who is in danger of suicide goes like this: A person has suicidal thoughts. It’s a crisis. The person gets help, and the crisis resolves within days or weeks. That’s the popular image, and thankfully it does happen for many people. But for others, suicidal thoughts do not go away. […]
What will people think of you? What will people say about you? Some people asked me these questions when I told them I was publishing an essay in the New York Times (“A Suicide Therapist’s Secret Past”) about a very dark time in my life when I made a suicide attempt. I can’t really blame them. […]
Across the Internet and elsewhere, people apply the term suicide survivor to two different groups of people: 1) people who struggled with suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide, and survived, and 2) people who were never suicidal at all, but who lost a loved one to suicide. In a post last year, I defined a suicide survivor […]
Many clinicians and researchers advocate for abandoning the term “suicide gesture,” but its use still persists. Over the last few years, several definitions have been reported: “…A suicide gesture is like a one person play in which the actor creates a dramatic effect, not by killing or even attempting to kill himself, but by feigning […]
A huge fear of many people who think about suicide is that they will go to a therapist who panics at the mention of the word “suicide.” Some therapists do, in fact, panic. This can take several forms. A panicky therapist may all too quickly recommend psychiatric hospitalization, even when it is not really necessary. […]
“I had no idea what I had done to you, although I should have known it in retrospect. So I guess now is a good time to say I am sorry, although it is about 19 years too late.” Those words came from a dear friend of mine who went through a prolonged suicidal crisis […]
Say someone wants to die by suicide so badly that they go to the Golden Gate Bridge to jump off. But then they are stopped from jumping. What happens to them afterward? You might think that, once freed from the authority figures who prevented their suicide on the bridge, they still went on to by suicide. […]
If you are depressed, stressed, or grieving, the term “pleasurable activities” may seem oxymoronic – no activity possibly could bring pleasure. Maybe you cannot even remember what gives you pleasure – or what once gave you pleasure no longer does. You may also think that pleasure is simply petty. If you feel so bad that […]
“She is not really suicidal. She just wants attention.” “He did not really attempt suicide. It was just a cry for help.” “If she had really wanted to die, she’d be dead.” These are often the reactions of friends and family to a suicidal person. Sometimes, it is true that a person who made what […]
Many people feel ashamed of their suicidal thoughts: “Thinking of suicide means I’m weak,” clients have told me. “I should be able to cope.” “I’m a bad person for wanting to kill myself.” Shame especially can follow a suicide attempt. One small study found that most of the people interviewed felt shame related to their […]
People who die in tornadoes are so selfish. They have people who love them, people who will be hurt terribly if they die. Yet they die anyway. People who die in tornadoes are thinking only of themselves. They take the easy way out when they refuse to overcome the storm. They don’t care that their […]
When you come to me for help, I want to help you. I hope you will let me. I cannot know your secrets without your words. I hope you will tell me. Tell me, please, your thoughts of suicide. You might feel scared to tell me When I ask you if you are thinking of suicide. I […]
The grief, loss, and bewilderment following the suicide of a loved one can be overwhelming. Many reactions are common, ranging from everything from shock to anger to self blame to considering suicide for yourself. There are questions, so many questions. “Why?” “What if…?” “What could I have done?” And there are few, if any answers. […]
You are walking with your best friend and she steps into the street without looking, forcing a car to swerve around her. You say, “Oh my God, you almost got killed,” and she says, “It wouldn’t matter anyway if I were dead.” Your son is home from college for spring break and has barely left his room. […]