Showing posts sorted by relevance for query suicide or suicidal. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query suicide or suicidal. Sort by date Show all posts

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Are You Cool Enough for the Suicide Club?

The subject I am writing about today may be uncomfortable for some of my readers. I think it is an important one, though, because it affects people who have been marginalized by many in the mental health community. If your brush with suicide left you unscathed, then you know what I'm talking about. Also, if you search for “cutting” or “suicide” on Tumblr.com, you will see what it is that bothers me in the article, but I won’t link directly to any particular post. I don’t want to give any of those troubled souls undue attention.

Despair never looked so pretty, Lana

There’s a club all the cool kids belong to.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend about suicide. Yes, most buddies discuss the latest game, last night’s sports score, Scarlett Johansson, or politics, but my friends have me, so they get stuck with mental health discussions. That day’s topic was suicide and suicide advocates. My friend was beside himself in excitement.

I was discussing Tumblr blogs I had seen as well as some of my occasional readers who dislike my approach to mental health. The type of readers I was discussing tend to become offended by words like “choice” and “willpower”, as if suicide is something outside of their control. Indeed, there are many who strongly feel that way, and we often disagree, but what I shared with my friend was that some people don’t think I know what I am talking about because they feel that I have never truly been suicidal. Their thinking follows along this wise: I didn’t really attempt suicide years ago because I wasn’t hospitalized, and I don’t have any scars.

This is, of course, ridiculous. I did attempt suicide, but I stopped myself from going through with it. The knife against my wrist was dull and wouldn’t cut my skin. When I realized I had to change the blade, I thought long and hard about what I was doing. I could just finish the job with more force, I could get up and get a new blade from the other room, or I could stop. I had a choice.

But notice what has happened? I described my suicide attempt in order to legitimize it. This, of course, was a waste of time. The nay-sayers only approve of failed attempts at suicide, not abandoned attempts. It’s as if there’s a suicide club only the cool kids can join. Membership requires evidence.

This exclusivity ostracizes people in pain who make the strong and difficult decision to live. In my opinion, this is twisted thinking. If somebody steps to the edge of a ledge, then decides to step back, that doesn’t count, but if they are pulled down by police, it does? If they have the urge to step in front of a train but stop themselves, that doesn’t count, but if somebody pulls them back it does? If they take pills and nothing happens, then it doesn’t count, but if they get hospitalized it does? The club rewards attempts and punishes victories.

Membership in the club is validated by mental health professionals, too. When I described my suicide attempt twenty-three or so years ago, my therapist dismissed it cavalierly. “That’s not a real suicide attempt. That’s just a cry for help.” She was the professional, and all her healing crystals agreed with her. I was out.

Membership to the Suicide Club has benefits

Ironically, membership to the Suicide Club requires you to be alive, and nothing can convince nay-sayers that you’ve danced with death more than cutting. I'm not talking about those who cut to release emotional pain, then hide their deeds. They keep their pain private, which is its own problem. I'm referring to the Tumblr cutters who treat cutting like a spectator sport. They make sure everybody knows how much pain they are in. Cutting here looks like serious damage has been done, but their life was never in jeopardy since the cuts are **mostly** for macabre show. Is it any wonder that mental health professionals dismiss cutting as non-suicidal behavior?*

Cutting. It's a practice that is foreign, frightening, to parents. It is not a suicide attempt, though it may look and seem that way.
WebMD

Yet in the suicide club, cutting is evidence that you are suicidal. Getting your stomach pumped is a good one, too. Then you can write depressing poetry to build your suicidal street cred, and nobody can dispute your claims. Tumblr is filled with blogs of people showing photos of their latest binge. Some of the cuts are still bleeding. The more blood, the more suicidal they seem to say they are, demanding greater respect from their peers. A poser like me who stopped himself from drawing blood should be kicked off the internet.

Suicidism as performance art gets you a spotlight, support from peers, and validation. You can’t just claim you were suicidal, obviously. You need to document it on social media. As they say, show pictures or it didn’t happen. Your suicidal tendencies make you special and way better than normies. You are now a member of the tortured artists guild that feels deeper and more purely than any healthy person could ever imagine, and you’ve got the Tumblr posts to prove it. It’s a way of celebrating mental illness as a badge of honor, but at what cost?

The Suicide Club teaches you to be a victim

Tumblr is only the most recent manifestation of the suicide club. The problem with proving over and over again how suicidal you are is that your emphasis is on being unhealthy. You aren’t working on becoming better. You’re treading water at best. Sure, dark poetry, grotesque photography, and public venting may be cathartic, but the crowd you hang around with keeps you down because it demands your suicidism and theirs be constantly validated. Instead of believing in your ability to overcome your negative impulses, you encourage yourself to dwell in the darkness.

I understand. I truly do. My dark poetry at fifteen years old helped me feel a release, but it also perpetuated the darkness. The somber portraits I painted of myself at eighteen, my off-putting fashion aesthetic, and my cynicism kept people at bay, but also magnified my loneliness. Only after I began to train myself to think positively did I truly begin to recover. I left suicidism behind me. This isn’t to say that I may never deal with it again. I am clinically depressed and expect suicidal ideation to rear its goth-like head again one day, but I will be ready for it. I don’t need to belong to the Suicide Club to know my experiences were real, and I definitely don’t need the club to overcome the darkness. I just hope that one day those desperate kids on Tumblr realize that the club they belong to has heavy dues that they don’t need to pay to find validity in life.

As for those of you in a position to lend support, professional or otherwise, if you ever encounter somebody who displays suicidal behavior, don’t second guess it. Suicidal behavior is suicidal. You aren’t helping anybody by downplaying their actions. Do you really want them to prove to you how serious they are? Look at what’s happening on Tumblr. Not even Tumblr thinks it’s healthy. Perhaps it's relief that powers the prevailing attitude that suicidal people can be treated differently between those who fail to succeed and those who choose not to try, but the urges are real either way. Let's not encourage people to prove how serious they are by triaging suicidals and sending home those who thought better of it with a pat on the head.

Tumblr Search Warning
Tumblr Search Warning

*Update, Saturday, November 21, 2015: Edited for clarity.


Image credit: Summertime Sadness, by Lana Del Rey

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Asking Siri for Help with Suicide

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book
"Saying NO to Suicide", with added commentary.



Triggering Siri's Suicide HelpSiri looks for local suicide prevention centers if you choose not to call the hotline.


Recently Apple has made changes to Siri to address the problem of suicide. Let’s take a look at those changes and see if they will be effective.

Using Siri can be fun and even useful, but one of the downsides to Siri is that everything you ask her is sent to a server out across the Internet through the wires, switches, and tubes where your question is parsed by Apple’s servers before an answer is sent back to you. This is a downside because the “conversation” is often a stilted one like those you have on walkie-talkies. You need to keep your query simple so Siri won’t be confused, and you have to wait for her to get back to you. If the internet is down, you’re out of luck.

The upside to all of this is that Apple gets to look over the types of questions people are seeking answers for. Apparently, a lot of people are asking Siri for help with suicide. Saying “I want to kill my boss” may not produce a useful reply, but now telling Siri “I want to kill myself”, “I want to commit suicide”, or simply “Suicide Hotline” calls up information for National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Siri tells you:
“If you are thinking about suicide, you may want to speak with someone at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. They’re at +1–800–273–8255. Shall I call them for you?”
Saying or tapping “yes” calls the number. Saying or tapping “no” causes Siri to search for suicide prevention centers near you. If she can’t find any, she offers to search the web.

This is a great way to leverage technology to help those struggling with Depression and Suicidal Ideation—something I’ve personally struggled with, too. Logic always wins out in the end for me, but not everybody is able to reason with themselves when they are in the throes of severe depression. A cry asking Siri for help with suicide can instead bring up the help they truly need.

Unfortunately, to get the desired help, one has to ask the magic questions. Telling Siri “I want to die” gets you help, but not “I wish I was dead”, or "I just want to die". Telling Siri “I want to jump off a bridge” points you to the lifeline, but not “I want to jump off a roof” or “I’m gonna jump”. "I want to shoot myself", yes, but "I'm feeling suicidal", no. Even just using “suicide” in a sentence doesn’t necessarily trigger help. I asked Siri “How do I commit suicide with a Reese’s peanutbutter cup?”, and Siri simply wanted to do a web search for me—not that I blamed her for not knowing. Her responses are not a simple keyword response to the sentences with “suicide” or “commit suicide” in them, but are likely keyed to preprogrammed sentences.

Researching all these expressions left me feeling a bit queasy. My daughters especially had little patience for this exercise, but I wanted to know what type of questions would spawn the proper responses. Was Apple just anticipating people's needs, or were Apple's servers being bombarded with people asking Siri for help with suicide? Saying "I want to blow my brains out" into my iPhone was strangely unsettling. When Siri was new most of us had fun asking random questions looking for offbeat answers, but as Siri has matured it has become more useful and more sensitive to people's needs. This isn’t as fun, but it is more socially conscious.

None of this will be helpful for me because I am thankfully beyond the days of suicidal ideation, and I’m not likely to ask Siri for help on the subject (She’s no Zola on AOL). This is a good thing because I don’t believe Siri has my best interests at heart. Just between you and I, I don't think Siri likes me much. When I told her, “I hate myself,” she glibly replied, “Noted.” Gee… Thanks, Siri.


Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Give Yourself a Fighting Chance. Put Stable People in Your Support Network

If you struggle with suicide, depression or anxiety, the types of people you have in your support network can make the difference between them being a lifeline or a weight.

Sunken Boat by nasir khan

It’s been over two years since I was last suicidal. I wasn’t making dark and deadly plans at the time. I simply thought I would be better off dead. It was the matter-of-factness of the “epiphany” that startled me the most. It seemed perfectly logical. Fortunately, I’ve heard this logic before and immediately engaged my coping strategies. I let family members know, I prayed deeply, and since I didn’t have a current counselor, I reached out to a bishop for a recommendation. Quite quickly, I put the suicidal ideation behind me. That’s the benefit of coping strategies.

It also helps that I was able to analyze my feelings and separate my awareness from the emotional maelstrom. I could outthink the destructive thoughts. This is very difficult for many people, though. They get caught up in the emotional maelstrom. When the illogical becomes logical, they need help from a support network, but not everybody is so fortunate.

During my recent anniversary , I couldn’t stop thinking about K-pop star, Goo Hara. The last time I wrote about Hara’s struggle with suicide was last year. I don’t stan for K-pop cuties (okeh. Not much), but discovering her band was one of the happy moments I shared with one of my daughters after the divorce. When I heard about Hara’s struggles last May, I was shocked. I wrote about it last September during National Suicide Prevention Month, but when I found out she took her life two months later, I was devastated. I haven’t listened to her band in years, but I was connected to her story. I wanted her to pull through.

Unfortunately for Hara, one of the supports she leaned on was her friend, Sulli, a fellow K-pop star who took her own life in October 2019. Hara followed Sulli’s example a month later. This incident shows the importance of having stable people in our support networks who don’t struggle with what we struggle with. Social contagion is real. The actions of others can unduly influence our own thinking.

As I wrote last time, building a support network is very difficult to do, but it is vitally important for your well being. Even if your depression or anxiety never plunges into being suicidal, start building that network right away. Finding stable people who can comfort you with wisdom and care is a trial & error process.

I commented on this process in my book:

“…many people don’t know what to do with the confession—even church leaders. Are we just being melodramatic, they wonder? Are we just looking for sympathy? Are we trying to manipulate their feelings so that we can get something from them? Why don’t we just suck it up and deal with it like everybody else? They have problems, too. And on and on and on. Their lack of empathy can be summed up with one glib and unspoken question: “What is wrong with you?”

The problem, of course, is that not every ear is sympathetic or capable of understanding the answer to that question. Of course, not every teacher, counselor, church leader, family member, etc. is insensitive or incapable of helping you—in fact, I suspect they are in the minority—but when we are hurting, we aren’t very good judges of who is best to trust. “Wait a minute!” you may shout. Common advice for those experiencing suicidal ideation is for them to seek help—to reach out and let others know what they are feeling. I agree. That is an important first step. The trouble with this step is that not everybody is equipped to deal with suicidal ideation. They can handle a slew of human conditions, but perhaps not suicide.

Sometimes, they might be emotionally unable to process your pain, or perhaps they simply don’t understand what you are trying to tell them. You wouldn’t ask an ear doctor for a medical opinion on your foot, would you? Why assume that untrained friends & family will be able to help you with suicidal ideation? This seems logical now, but when we reach out for help due to the influence of depression and suicidal ideation, we are already not thinking clearly. What saved me when I reached out to that church leader was that I had something already in place to fall back on—a support network that I had relied on for years. This is why you should mentally prepare for a suicide emergency as you would prepare for a fire or earthquake emergency. Go over your plan before hand. Line up people before hand.”¹

It seems logical to reach out to people who are also going through what you are. If anybody is going to be sympathetic, it’ll be another person dealing with anxiety, depression, or being suicidal, right? However, consider for a moment how much energy you put into feeling “normal” each day—how exhausted you are by the end of the day. Your support friend is likely as exhausted as you are. They may not have the emotional strength necessary to carry your burden along with theirs.

My recommendation is to keep like-minded friends as friends, but build a support network with sympathetic and caring people who aren’t struggling with your same mental health issues. Camaraderie is important. However, when you’re floundering, you need people to pull your boat ashore when waters are choppy, not put holes in the bottom.



If you’d like to read the rest of the chapter featured in this article, you can find the book online at most major ebook retailers, or suggest it as a purchase for your local online library.


  1. Saying NO to Suicide by D.R. Cootey  ↩

Thursday, January 09, 2020

Sickness, then Celebration – Putting Suicide Behind Me

Even despite the worst sickness in years, I’ve maintained an even keel. Come celebrate with me.

Family carrot. My daughter, Cathryn Today is the 650th day since I was last suicidal. Keeping track of this stat is only something I began six hundred and fifty days ago. Before that was a hard spell in 2013, and before that was the two year rollercoaster at the end of my marriage. I thought about ending things quite a bit back then. I’m grateful that I was able to ignore those urges, but as I marvel at the number of days free from suicidal ideation, I am more grateful that I have retained my positivity through almost five months of being housebound with a chronic respiratory illness.

I’ve written here before about the dark clarity that suicidal ideation can bring¹. When our minds are awash in sadness and overwhelmed by the undertow of confusion that suicidal depression brings, we tend to grasp at any bit of flotsam that crosses our path. Some of that flotsam, like suicidal ideation, ironically seems like a lifeline. It gives us focus, clarity, and purpose when before there was only chaos.

One false clarity that suicidal ideation brings is the idea the world would be better off without us. Once we’re gone, we reason, our pain will end and with it will come peace to those we burdened. No more disappointing others. No more failing to meet their expectations. We’ll be doing them a kindness.

Friday, September 20, 2013

What To Expect When You Call a Suicide Prevention Hotline

NOTICE: Since I am disabled, sometimes I am offline. Please don't expect a speedy response to your comments. If you need immediate help, please call the hotline or reach out to somebody you trust.



Update 2016: This article was featured in my book
"Saying NO to Suicide", with added commentary.




On National Suicide Prevention Day last week, many Twitter celebrities did their civic duty by retweeting the same two tweets over & over again, both pointing to suicide prevention hotlines. Some people who discuss suicide the other 364 days of the year were irritated by the superficial emphasis on hotlines—as if tweeting a hotline constituted quality support. Certainly, Twitter can be vapid. Twitter advocacy is usually about feeling charitable more than actually being charitable. But were suicide prevention hotlines as bad as people claimed?

I generally considered a hotline the last option because there are so many other better, more personable, resources out there, but common consent on Twitter was that these hotlines were terrible things best avoided like the hantavirus. Some people expressed fear that conversations were recorded and traced. Some even claimed that their experience with a hotline was demeaning when they were questioned for demographic information. Could it be true? I found out that many of the fears people have were mislaid, and that a suicide prevention hotline was far more useful than I realized.

I had called a hotline before when I explored asking Apple’s Siri to get suicide help and had a very positive experience, so I thought I’d call and ask them to address people’s concerns. Then I called them again a few days later when I was feeling down to see what would happen. Here’s what I learned.

If you use Siri you will get the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1–800–273–8255). This number routs you to a local call center. Since I live in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, I was directed to a local call center at the University of Utah. The people at the  Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) were friendly, supportive, and eager to help. They don’t believe in a stigma surrounding suicidal ideation and want to make themselves available for anybody who is struggling. Funding has made overnight stays available for people in crisis, with counselors on site to help out. There is even a mobile unit that can travel to you. Funding is also available for longer stays for those who qualify (depending on the severity of your situation).

The SPRC doesn’t record conversations, but they do involve the police to trace calls from time to time when the caller is in danger of self-harm. This is not a common occurrence, however. Their policy is to first attempt to get permission from the caller before sending help. As for demographic questionnaires, I was not asked to provide demographic information. From what I have read online, centers like the SPRC need to know who in their community they are serving to help procure funding. If you feel uncomfortable answering personal questions, tell the phone counselor exactly that. It’s your phone call.

Lastly, I wanted to see what type of support I would receive if I was depressed. A friendly voice told me their name and asked me how I was doing. I wasn’t pressed for any private, identifying details. The phone counselor simply let me talk. I told her I wasn’t suicidal, but I was depressed and was curious what type of support they offered. I have never needed a hotline because of my excellent support network, so I wasn't sure what to say. However, taking the step to reach out to somebody has always improved my mood, so I told the phone counselor that I felt better and hung up. The SPRC didn’t call back. There was no rescue unit outside my door. I simply had a very nice conversation with a supportive phone counselor who was there to help me if I needed it. If I had been suicidal as I have experienced from time to time in the past, I can imagine that having a sincere person to talk to at four in the morning would be a very valuable asset. My support network isn't nocturnal as I am.

Here are some tips to use a suicide prevention hotline as a viable resource next time you struggle with suicidal ideation and urges.
  1. Call the suicide prevention hotline before you need it. Not all suicide prevention hotlines are created equal. Do your research.
  2. If you are concerned about being traced, call the hotline from a pay phone. Ask them about their policies on recording conversations & tracing calls. Sunglasses and overcoat are optional.
  3. Not everybody has a virtual assistant in their pocket willing to dial the suicide prevention hotline for them, so use an old school trick. Write the hotline numbers down on a piece of paper, and store them in your wallet or purse.
  4. If you feel your phone counselor is too bound by a script, use silence to get them off the script, or tell them their script is making you apprehensive. I realize how vulnerable you might feel in a situation where you are at the edge of suicidal ideation, but you aren’t under any obligation to answer any question that makes you feel uncomfortable. Try to remember that. You can always ask to speak to another phone counselor, or just hang up and call again later.
  5. The phone counselors are people, too. Many of them are volunteering their time to be supportive to those in need. They aren’t professionals so cut them some slack. They may be just as nervous as you are.
  6. Don’t carry this burden alone if making a simple phone call can put you in contact with people that care.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Don't Apologize for Feeling Suicidal

You shouldn’t feel ashamed for feeling suicidal. Here’s how you can take a stand for yourself.

I saw a news item a few months ago that troubled me.[1] At first, the item was in regard to a K-pop idol (Goo Hara) who my third oldest daughter and I enjoyed watching and listening to in the group, KARA. During KARA’s heyday, my daughter and I followed all their videos and song releases. It was fun—at least until she discovered a guy who had his own rock band. Then dad and K-pop were replaced with an electric guitar and a husband. Poor Daddy.

Reading about anybody’s suicide attempt is heartbreaking, but Goo’s suicide hit home because I remember her so fondly. However, what followed two days later deeply disturbed me. While recovering from her suicide attempt, a press conference was held and Goo apologized to her fans for worrying them—from the hospital. She looked pale and haunted.[2]

Imagine having to say the following while recovering from a suicide attempt:

“I am sorry for causing concerns and a commotion.”
“In terms of health, I am recovering … I had been in agony over a number of overlapping issues. But from now on, I will steel my heart and try to show up healthy.”
“So many things were happening in my life, all at the same time. I am truly sorry. I will show a brighter and healthier side of myself.”[3]


Friday, September 12, 2014

Kicking Suicide in the Teeth

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book
"Saying NO to Suicide", with added commentary.



I have to confess something. I don't like most online suicide prevention resources. It's not that they're wrong, but that they're too soft. I'm looking for Burgess Merideth in my corner shouting at me in a gravelly voice, “Keep hittin 'em in the ribs, ya see? Don't let that b— breathe!”, not “Someone need a hug?” like Will Farrel's character in Elf. Suicidal ideation needs to be fought tooth and nail; I need pep talks not greeting cards.

When I was suicidal a few weeks ago I had nobody nearby to turn to. It was very late at night, and I didn't think to call a hotline or wake up a friend. Instead, I texted my daughter in Germany. I just needed somebody to know what I was struggling with. She replied with sympathy, but also asked me what I was going to do about it. I laid out my game plan and she sent me words of encouragement. I had her in my corner, and I was going to win the fight. Even just confessing to her was a positive action that began the turnaround. By the time I woke up the next day, I was no longer in any danger. I had made it to the bell round after round and won.

I'm not sure why I was suicidal then. Sometimes there isn't a good reason. I've got more going wrong today than I did weeks ago, and I'm not experiencing suicidal ideation in the slightest. I'm getting over a nasty cold, I'm very depressed, I'm still struggling with the divorce, I'm lonely, I've got a buck in the bank with bills still unpaid, and I spent the day in forearm crutches because I was so neurologically off that I couldn't walk. I deal with much more than ADHD and depression. I tell you this not for sympathy, but because I need you to realize that I understand what feeling low is like. I understand desperation and hopelessness. I get it. However, I'm still not going to kill myself. Suicidal urges are a trick of the mind, and I'm not falling for it.

So if you are like me and are tired of the greeting card sentimentality of many suicide prevention resources, please understand that it's not just you who doesn't find them helpful. They're simply not targeted to somebody like you or I. We need somebody fighting in our corner for us and cheering us on towards success. I don't have a hug for you. I'm not going to tell you that you can't help feeling this way. So listen closely.

You can do it!

Keep hittin' depression in the ribs!

Kick those suicidal urges in the teeth!!

Get in there and knock 'em dead!

 

Yeah, I did just say that. I don't mollycoddle when it comes to suicidal tendencies. I'm fighting for my life. Maybe that sounds melodramatic to you, but it's been the technique I've used to beat back suicidal impulses for twenty-seven years. If I was suicidal weeks ago but I'm not today when things are much worse, then suicide just doesn't make any sense, does it?

Unfortunately, logic doesn't work so well on the depressed mind. The overwhelming feelings of despair are hard to think through clearly. So prepare today. Find your reason to live. Write it down. Staple it to your forehead. Do what you have to in order to give yourself a reason to hang in there until the urges pass. Because the urges will pass. There will be another dawn. You will get to the other side of the abyss and be happier for it. That doesn't sound as nice as a greeting card expression, but it is still true. Roll up your sleeves, and get ready for the fight. It's going to be difficult at times, but you can do it. Suicidal tendencies can be overcome.

 

Reposted from May 2014


Friday, January 27, 2017

Don't Put Your Suicide Message in a Bottle

“Oh please, dear Lord, take me home.” ☜ Somebody posted this on Facebook last night. I had been reading this woman’s cries for help for weeks, but never spoke up because dozens upon dozens of people jumped into each post to give her love and encouragement. I didn’t believe that I could add anything that her peers hadn’t already expressed. Last night, however, this post bothered me. If you’ve read my blog, you know how I feel about drive-by suicide notes. These types of posts are cathartic for the people who leave them, but they burden the folks who read them. They aren’t constructive and smack of wallowing. I felt compelled to leave a comment, but what would be the best approach? How could I help her believe that she could take control of her suicidal tendencies? I didn't want to scold her. She was as down as a person could be, but she didn’t have to needlessly suffer, either.

Most drive-by suicide notes posted in the comments on this blog were usually posted by anonymous people who left their cry for help, never to return again. Over and over, I tried to reach out to them via email, but these people, if they weren’t just trolls, never replied. It made me feel impotent and helpless. Eventually, they began to make me mad. Cries for help with no way to receive help weren’t really cries for help at all, but self-indulgent suicide graffiti sprayed onto the lives of people who cared, but who were denied the opportunity to truly be helpful. My readers left the most heart-felt, passionate replies, but the person was long gone. How were my readers to tell the difference between somebody trolling the comments section and a legitimate cry for help? I analyzed the pleas and found patterns to distinguish valid expressions of suicide from drive-by suicide notes, then I made the policy to delete the drive-bys.

With the above in mind, when I read this poor woman’s post, old feelings of frustration came to the surface. Didn’t she know she had to fight suicidal ideation? Didn’t having four children dependent on her give her the motivation to live? Didn’t she know that suicide lies?! What did she want people to say with a post like that‽ How was that post not simply a cry for attention instead of a cry for help? Obviously, the answer to many of these questions was that she was a person in pain, overwhelmed, and flailing in desperation. Unlike the anonymous posters who spammed my comments sections, however, I knew this person. I could reach out and help. I share my reply here for you:

████, twenty five years ago when I was at my lowest point, moving beyond suicidal ideation into suicidal planning—when I was moments away from executing my plan—I asked myself if I had any reason to live. My daughter and wife came to my mind. Who would take care of my daughter when I was gone? I was a stay-at-home dad. She needed me. I held onto that as a lifeline, and I learned to love myself. That lifeline grew into a family of four beautiful daughters. Even when my wife left me several years ago, and I struggled again with suicidal thoughts and urges, my daughters were the reason I kept going. And I wanted to keep going. The truth is that I didn’t really want to die; I just wanted the pain to end.

Where depression can seem like a heavy, smothering blanket of sadness, suicidal depression feels like a sharp ache. It warps how we think. We start to believe that people will be better off without us, but that is suicide’s lie. Things truly will improve. You can learn to control this, and push it deep below the surface. Start by finding reasons to live. Make a list and keep it handy. Train yourself to think more positively with thankfulness journals. You can offset the chemicals in your mind. You have said in the past that you love your therapist. Ask them about cognitive behavior therapy. Your family loves you and needs you. They are worth all the effort to turn your thoughts around. My prayers are with you. You aren’t alone.

To you out there struggling with suicidism, I want you to know that you aren’t alone. Your pain is real and hard to bear, but it can be healed. Don’t keep your pain buried in secret. Seek help immediately. Please keep in mind, however, that there is a world of difference between saying, “Hey, guys. I’m struggling tonight. I feel suicidal.” and “Oh please, dear Lord, take me home.” The former is a confession of pain that invites help. The latter is a self-indulgent comment that has already shut down the conversation.

I know about the warping affect suicidal depression has on the mind. Taking your own life seems so logical when you are at the nadir of life. It can even seem like a blessing for your loved ones. Aside from the trolls, this warped negativity is likely at fault for the maudlin posts that many suicidal people leave. I understand this all too well from personal experience. Yet the problem with this Facebook friend’s posts was that she was abdicating responsibility for her own mental health and laying it on the shoulders of others. This is an incredibly irresponsible way to ask for help. Facebook could bury your comment through their algorithm. It could get lost in the heavy flow of people’s timelines amidst all the kitten videos and Nazi-Trump references. I favor a proactive approach to happiness. Don’t send out a message in a bottle! Call an actual person and get some help.

If social media is your only method of reaching people, don’t spam your channel. Reach out to specific individuals. Reach out to the people who can help. I cover this a lot in my book (Chapter 22: Knowing Whom To Rely On), but I can tell you here that you need to start compiling a list of supportive people today. Not everybody that you admire or pin your hopes on can handle suicidism. Their minds may melt down at the mere mention of the concept. But supportive people do exist. It is your responsibility to find them. Sometimes you can get lucky when they reach out to your first, but it’s good to have a backup network.

Lastly, be kind to those that follow you on social media. Nothing makes us feel more helpless than reading about somebody who wants to die and isn’t interested in our input. More people care about you than you know. Learn to care for them back. Start with caring about yourself. You are worthy to be alive.



If you’re looking for tips to help a suicidal loved one, you should really read my book.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

I Wanted to Die Last Night

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book "Saying NO to Suicide", with added commentary.


Hear this article read to you:








Like a spectre from Christmas Past haunting Scrooge, old ideation came for a visit last night, complete with jangling chains.

(cc) Christian BachellierDespite all that is miswired in my head, I'm usually a well-balanced person. I struggle with a small cornucopia of maladies, but always put on a bright face, pushing forward. Ever pushing forward. The alternative is something I run from, having experienced it many years ago: a blackness so complete that I cut myself off from friends and family, full of self-loathing, and drawn up within myself in misery.

I've been in the throes of Depression before — I've struggled with Depression since I was fifteen — and I have no intention of ever giving it power over me again. That is why I was so surprised to find myself wishing I was dead last night.

When I was fifteen I flirted with ideas of suicidal ideation. Mostly, it manifested itself in morose, artsy poetry that caused my parents to panic so intensely they drove me from Cape Cod all the way to Boston's Children's Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. How I hated them for that. In my mind at the time it was a colossal humiliation. It was just poetry, I thought, and not even very good poetry.

Some good came of that evaluation, however. For instance, now as an adult I understand how much my parents loved me, but even at the time there were benefits. The specialists pinpointed a few aspects of me with accuracy. I was informed that I was extremely intelligent. I mention this because I remember thinking "You needed a test to figure that out?". No, wait, that was what I thought when they informed us that I was hyperactive. You know, easily distracted, fidgety, etc. This was a scant few years before Attention Deficit Disorder was a known diagnosis. They did put a number on my intelligence, however. It was 145. I was told it was a near-genius IQ, and I distinctly remember focusing only on the "near" part of that adjective. I hated myself for not scoring 150.

I mention all this because it stands in stark contrast with the stupidity of last night as I wished I was dead. I have experienced that before. Prior to getting on disability, I was at the lowest point of my life. I did contemplate suicide and began to plan it out in my mind. The year was 1995 and there wasn't anything on how to make your own cyanide on the internet. I distinctly remember taking an X-acto blade and pushing it against my wrist's skin, gauging how hard I'd have to push to get the job done — wondering if I really wanted to do it. The only reason I stopped? I didn't want my wife to come home from work to a bloody mess. There's heightened logic for you.

Let me be clear. I do not want to kill myself. It was a stupid thing that I said. I was simply weary from all the ticking.

I've been ticking so much lately. I actually hurt last night as I trudged up the stairs. I ached all over from muscle and mental fatigue. I don't just sit there twitching if I can help it. I push myself. Always pushing myself.

When I muttered the moronic words "I wish I was dead" my wife heard them and raced up the stairs after me. "What did you say? What did you say‽" Fire was flaring from her eyes as she decreed it was time for me to go to bed.

At the time, death seemed a logical end to the pain I was experiencing. Obviously, if I was dead I couldn't facial tic, or vocal tic, or clench tic, or curl tic, or flail tic anymore. I would be "free". What a dope. My IQ is a meaningless number if that is the best I can come up with. What is intelligence if we cannot rein our emotions in? All the talents and light God gives us amount to nothing when we throw them away with our lives.

I believe that people who commit suicide truly believe they are solving their problems, but their thinking is flawed at that moment. Born of a chemical storm in their mind, they give credence to thoughts that most of us either dismiss offhand or never experience at all.

What I experienced last night was not suicidal ideation. I've been down that road before. I know it's bends and turns. This was just self-pity disguised as logic. It was born of a feverish mind, overtired and overextended. A good night's sleep was just what I needed. In the light of a new day I'm a bit embarrassed I uttered such idiocy.

I share it with you for insight, however. Perhaps you know a loved one who struggles with suicidal ideation or just writes dark, death-centric poetry. Either way, maybe you can understand them better now. Your job is to help them see that death is not the solution they romanticize or justify it to be. I am fortunate. At all times in my life when I was even remotely serious about suicide, I reasoned myself out of it.

If you struggle with suicidal ideation or know of someone who does, please leave your thoughts below. With the holiday season approaching, and an increase in Depression for some, we should pool our resources together to help those in need see the light that's shining behind the storm in their minds.



Monday, June 11, 2018

Three Ways to Fight the Stigma of Suicide

Celebrity Suicide June 2108

Last week was a sad week for celebrity suicides. You may not have known much about those who took their own lives, but if your social media timeline was like mine, you were connected with many people whose hearts were touched by the news.

We began the week with the passing of Kate Spade, a fashion designer who built a handbag empire and turned her name into a multi-million dollar brand, then finished the week with the passing of Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef and CNN host whose stories about exotic cultures and food entertained audiences worldwide. They both chose to hang themselves—a gruesome end to their stellar careers.

Many people ask themselves, “Why? How could this have happened‽” I’ve seen others sneer. Some even faulted the departed for selfishness because they left behind grieving loved ones. These are the typical responses one finds online. The internet is filled with many insensitive souls who are drunk with their own superiority, but generally, most people are good at heart. Suicide shocks them to their core.


Saturday, July 03, 2021

Patience for Those Who Grieve

Anger, Grief & Pain © Douglas Cootey

❝My son fricken tried to commit suicide, so I had to drive all the way over there to deal with it.

A few months ago, I pulled up to the one remaining branch in my area that US Bank allowed to be open during the pandemic and tentatively approached the entrance. I had banking to do, but they had bizarrely limited hours and, of course, they were closed. So I entered the ATM area and began my bank transfers with hundreds of dollars tight to my chest, hoping nobody would come in and rob me blind while I was feeding the money into the ATM.

As I was doing my banking in the comfort of their ATM fishbowl, a woman entered behind me. I made some polite comment about how I was almost done, and that magically opened up a flood of information from her that I never would’ve expected. Strangers usually don’t open up to each other, especially about the subject that she was dealing with. The quote above is the choicest one that she shared with me. I remember thinking at the time how callous and insensitive she was. I prayed that her son would find the support that he needed during his struggle with surviving suicide.

Recently, a family in my neighborhood suddenly dealt with the death of a son. His family went on vacation without him and came home to find a surprise. It was a traumatic event since the children were there, I believe, when they found his body, and the whole family is struggling with anger, shame, and survivor’s guilt. As usual, many family members will not talk about it. Suicide is the death act that shall not be discussed. It is taboo. Meanwhile, other family members openly discuss it on Facebook, angering or hurting those who want to keep the matter private. It seems older generations are more reluctant to acknowledge suicide than the younger generations who wish to discuss it openly.

At first, I presumed that my banking friend fell in with the older generation, but she discussed her son’s suicide attempt openly, though with contempt. I couldn’t tell if she was callous because she was a heartless mother, or if she was in shock and angry. I don’t read minds.

When I was dealing with that stranger, I was trying to stay polite in the onslaught of her anger. Her unsympathetic comments seemed inappropriate and unwarranted. I was just somebody she was venting at. Personally, I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but now I wonder how alone she must have felt to open up and vent her feelings to an absolute stranger. Having struggled with suicidal ideation off and on in my life, I would like to think that my family will not be griping to strangers about me if I should ever stray. However, having dealt with people who survived a loved one’s suicide, I realize that grief transforms rational people into raw nerves. I do try not to judge.

My advice is two-fold since there are two issues being dealt with here.

  1. If you encounter somebody who is grieving over the suicidal death of a loved one, you need to be compassionate even if you disapprove of their method of grief. Grief is very personal, so be patient and allow them to grieve initially however they need to. They will run through a spectrum of emotions, and it is not your place to police those emotions, especially within the raw hours following the bad news. Try to resist the urge to correct their thinking while they are doing nothing but feeling. In the days to follow, there will come a moment when the rage or grief will abate, and then they can receive your suggestions for better, more constructive methods of dealing with their pain and depression.
  2. If you are the one grieving over the suicidal death of a loved one, you might not want to open up to a stranger at the ATM. It is imperative that you find people you feel safe talking to. You shouldn’t bottle your feelings up, or bury them deep inside in order to “be strong”. Being strong is being in touch with your feelings which will give you the strength to help those who are struggling with theirs. Avoid negative friends or family members who feel compelled to force their viewpoints on you. Lastly, don’t decide for others when they have grieved long enough.

I’m not sure what I can do to help the family in my neighborhood. I’m not extremely close with them. They have not turned to me for comfort. It’s not my place to shoehorn my way into their life, but I am sure I can find some way to serve them without intruding. Mostly, I am glad that I did not lose my patience with that outwardly hard-hearted mother. It is possible that I saw the reason why the young lad tried to end his life. Perhaps she isn’t a very good person. However, if she dumped her frustrations and darkness on me instead of family members, then I’ll consider that my good deed for the grieving family.



I wrote a book a few years back that has advice on how to deal with suicide. You might find it helpful.

Monday, March 19, 2018

Dolores O'Riordan and I Have Something in Common

Just a few thoughts before my day takes me away.

The other day, I thought I’d celebrate St. Patty’s Day with The Cranberries. Dolores O’Riordan has been on my mind lately, and her voice was just the Irish taste I was looking for. However, I couldn’t listen to her voice and not remember what had recently happened to her. We won’t know officially how or why she died until next month. In the meantime, rumors swirl from police at the scene of fentanyl and suicide.

People pay a heavy price for addiction. Dolores struggled with depression, suicide, and addiction for years, then paid with her life. She sang in 1996 about the dangers of allowing drugs and external forces to have control over our lives, but it seems that years later she still hadn’t gained control. I suddenly felt very sad for her.

This brought an end to listening to The Cranberries. The pain was too recent and personal.

I experienced suicidal ideation early last week. It was the first time in six or more years. Just an errant thought. Caught me by surprise. I immediately fired up my coping strategies and called somebody. I let them know what was going on, and we chatted for a bit. Then the darkness passed.

If you struggle with suidism, I cannot recommend enough the importance of working out a game plan on a good day so that you can rely on that plan on a bad day. This is what saves me over and over again.

I wrote a blog about these coping strategies called “Six Steps to Overcome Suicidism” while writing my first book. I included the article in the chapter on knowing who to rely on. The article is loaded with helpful information, but I just discovered that I never remembered to post it here. Ah, ADHD… I’ll have to remind myself to rectify that.

In short, I try to talk myself out of suicide first, then pray for help second. I have a great deal of faith in prayer. However, if prayer fails to abate the suicidal feelings, then I rely on friends and family. If they aren’t available, the fourth line of defense is a church leader. The important thing is to tell somebody—anybody—what you are experiencing. Even a suicide hotline will suffice. Get your urge out of the shadows. These aberrant feelings don’t thrive in the light.

Decades ago, these suicidal feelings were overpowering, suffocating, and daily. It took me ten years of training to regulate my moods and to not let them take over my life. Now I go years between bouts. It truly is miraculous progress compared to the dark place I used to reside in. I’m so grateful that I made the effort and found success, but I never had drug addiction to deal with on top of suicidal ideation. I can’t imagine what Dolores was struggling with, or how the drugs addled her outlook. But this is speculation.

What I can say is that you are more important than you realize. Suicidal depression is insidious. It convinces us that we do the world a kindness by taking our lives. Please seek help if you struggle daily with these destructive urges.

~Dˢ


National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Call 1–800–273–8255


Saturday, September 16, 2017

Four Things You Can Do to #StopSuicide

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

As National Suicide Prevention Week comes to a close, I wanted to share a few words. I was once suicidal. I hated myself. I hated my life. I was blind to the love of people around me. I was virtually on the precipice, but stepped back at the last moment because of their love. They mattered to me, and I mattered to them. I remembered that at the moment it would do the most good. I survived that dark period, and other dark periods that followed. I survived, healed, and now I try to help other people as desperately miserable as I once was by opening up about depression, ADHD, and suicide with my writing.

In fact, I wrote a book to #StopSuicide, but helping people doesn’t need to be that elaborate. Just listen and care when somebody is in crisis. Take the time to care. Don’t recoil from the subject. The fact somebody is opening up to you about such a difficult subject is an amazing blessing in your life. Don’t waste it.

The other night I spoke with a gentleman whose boy committed suicide years ago. His pain survives that suicide years later. He felt his boy didn’t mean to do it. That it was an accident. People care. They agonize over these deaths. If you are convinced nobody cares, that’s the suicidal intentions lying to you. This father, like most survivors, was wracked with survivor’s guilt. I could see it in his eyes. It’s a look I’ve seen before. “What could I have done differently?!”, they usually ask themselves. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. The ultimate choice is theirs to make, but you can do a few things to give them a fighting chance:

  1. Ask
    You know what people look like when they are sad. You know what people look like when they are devastated. If you see somebody carrying that kind of cloud over their heads, take a moment to inquire how they’re doing. They will probably tell you they’re just fine, because don’t we all? But you’ve opened a door that they didn’t know was open for them before.

  2. Listen
    If they choose to open up to you, their feelings may be intense, and what they describe may be hard to bear, but persevere. You are their lifeline. Don’t pull it back into the boat before they grab on.

  3. Care
    You may find their reasons for feeling suicidal are insignificant and even silly. I’ve heard it all. People without problems react to people drowning in problems with some form of “What? That’s nothing!” But keep this in mind. Suicidal depression magnifies small events into giant meteors of impending death. Their perception is that there is no hope, no way out except death. You may look and see tiny obstacles that would be easy for you to circumvent, but for them, these obstacles are mountains of impossible height. Don’t berate them for not being you. If they saw their life problems as small obstacles, they wouldn’t be confiding in you for help. Do your best to give them support, perspective, and compassion.

  4. Follow Up
    As the adage goes, out of sight, out of mind. You may pat yourself on the back for a job well done, but they may continue walking around with a cloud over their heads. Check in on them to see how they are doing. Your simple pep talk won’t erase a tsunami of suicidal depression anymore than one moment of sun dries your clothes on a rainy day. Don’t pester them, obviously, but keep at it. Ask them here and there how they’re doing. Let them know somebody cares.

From my own experience with suicide, we don’t think clearly during our bleakest moments. We may even believe that what we are planning is perfectly logical—even a kindness to the people we leave behind. Keep reaching out. Keep loving. It matters.

It’s not our responsibility to make their choices for them. It’s not our fault if they reject us and make that final, horrible choice. But if there is even one chance that a caring ear bent towards their needs could have helped them stop, wouldn’t you want to be the person who saved somebody from their darkest impulses?

~Dˢ



Thank you for your support this week. I hope you found my book on fighting suicide helpful, or gifted it to somebody else who might.

 

Monday, January 26, 2015

Do We Have What It Takes to be Helpful with Suicidal People?

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book
"Saying NO to Suicide", with added commentary.



(credit: Kendrea Johnson Family)
Recently, I read about Kendrea Johnson, a six year old girl who allegedly hung herself with a jumprope. Her case has bothered me deeply not just because it was a senseless death of an innocent child, or because of the sadness she must have experienced by being put into the foster care system, or even just because the idea of a six year old struggling with suicidal ideation is so disturbing. I was bothered because I do not know how I could have helped such a child if I had been given the opportunity.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sad for what I do.”
These notes, written in purple marker, were left behind. They break my heart. Her foster mother claimed she talked about jumping to her death out of a window because Kendrea claimed nobody liked her. She drew a picture at school of a child hanging by a rope. If the coroner’s report was to be believed, she had tried unsuccessfully to hang herself before, too. How could nobody see this little girl needed help?

If I was there, I imagine I would have told her that she was beautiful and important to the people around her. I like to imagine that I would have helped her find constructive ways to deal with her feelings of abandonment. However, even if I had been there, I wasn’t part of her life. I wasn’t family. I would have returned to the safety of my world at the end of the day, and she would have stayed there in her world where family stability, maternal guidance, and emotional support were denied her. Without being able to teach her over time to see her suicidal feelings as separate from her identity, or being able to help her develop cognitive behavior coping strategies to deal with her confusion and misery, my advice would just be words that lose meaning as soon as I left. The core of her life was fractured.

I’ve been pondering this issue because my learning disabled thirteen year old shouted at me the other day, “I wish I was dead!”—all because I took her iPad away. I had caught her watching Netflix three hours past her bedtime, so I removed her iPad from the room. Overtired, she burst into tears and shouted that at me, among other dramatic and caustic things. I was completely floored. Where did she learn such language? Who taught her these concepts? Then again, who taught me when I was fifteen how to write morbid poetry about death as a romantic solution for my pain? Why do some of us latch onto the language of death as a twisted coping mechanism?

I don’t have answers for these questions, but as I await my editor’s feedback on my book on overcoming suicide, these thoughts contribute to my post-completion doubts. Many authors experience this. They wonder, “Is my book any good?” Since I wrote a self-help book for people struggling with suicide, my doubts are, “Is my advice helpful?”

I realize with some dread that much of the advice I gave in my book would be almost useless to Kendrea and my daughter because it was written from an adult perspective for people who can reason with their emotions. Children aren’t the only ones who have difficulty with this concept. Can suicidal people who are emotionally overwhelmed gain anything from my book? In a broader sense, all advice can be questioned. How tailored is it for the listener? When you have a scarred individual, getting them to see their life in a new way where they are valuable is a difficult task. It requires work and effort over time. When you can’t reason with somebody in throes of suicidality, how can you help them?

My answer to that is “Any way that you can.” Even the effort counts because in the end, we are all inadequate in one way or another. To quit giving support is to give up on people. I’ve talked to my daughter about her dramatic statements the other day and helped her see that they were over the top—that life is worth living even without her iPad. I didn’t approach the subject that night, but waited for her storm to have passed when she could be reasoned with. Unlike Kendrea, my daughter’s cry for help was self-pity, not a true wish for self-annihilation. Even still, I dealt with her with sensitivity and love.

Sometimes people who cannot fathom suicidal ideation don’t feel they need to exercise sensitivity and love. They don’t have patience for other people’s problems, and they come across as uncaring when they dismiss these suicidal urges as a weakness of moral character. Was Kendrea responsible for her actions? Was she selfish? Was she a quiter? I don’t believe that was the case at all.[1] We need to see that each case is different. Some people are more aware of the repercussions of suicide than others. We need to react dynamically. These questions of responsibility that we ask of an adult are meaningless when applied to a child or an emotionally impaired adult. In Kendrea’s case, she was innocent and didn’t know how to process her emotional pain in a constructive way. She needed help, but she was six, and who ever heard of a six year old child being at risk for suicide?[2] So her very complicated needs went unaddressed.

Fortunately, most of us are very cognitive of our actions. We see the big picture. It is to the cognitively aware that I reach out—the people like me who want to fight the dark urges, not give into them. When I was at death’s door, I reasoned with myself and turned back towards life. I like to believe that I was not special—that anybody can do as I did with the proper motivation and skill set. It is my hope that my book can reach them & their family members to give guidance by using my experiences. We’ll see how that plays out. In the meantime, those who cannot see reason need us to intervene and help them as best as we can. They need rescuing. We can’t give up on them.

News items of people who experience tragedy far remote from us can make us feel impotent, especially when that tragedy hits close to home. Sometimes we don’t know what to do with the emotions these events trigger. I can’t do anything about Kendrea. Her life is regrettably gone. However, I can channel these feelings into being a better dad for my daughter today and tomorrow. I can channel these feelings and increase my empathy to help those around me. I can commit to being more aware of the signs of those who struggle with suicidality. I suppose it’s a way of paying things forward. Take the lessons we learn from others and apply them to our own lives. In this way Kendrea lives on. In this way we can be truly helpful.

Did you hear of Kendrea's story before? How did it make you feel? How does this story change your approach to suicidality?


  1. My religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaches us that children are not responsible for their actions until the age of eight—that they are incapable of sin. It differs from other Christian faiths that teach a child is guilty of Adam’s Transgression and therefore in dire need of baptism/christening. I mention this so that you understand where I am coming from.  ↩
  2. According to the article, there were 33 suicides among children ages 5–9 in the U.S. between 1999 and 2006. Statistically, this is very rare. However, I was not able to verify the information. None of the statistics I found on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed deaths for children younger than ten years old.  ↩

Monday, September 08, 2014

25 Reasons I Say "No" to Suicide

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book
"Saying NO to Suicide", with added commentary.



Suriviving suicide requires having a reason to live. In fact, it requires many reasons. Start your list today.

First Daughter of Four. Top of my list.

I was supposed to start my week with a bang. Here was my big opportunity to blog every day to honor National Suicide Prevention Week. I’d get the blog out in the morning, promote it on social media, and maybe share my story with new readers. Instead, my tic disorder & sickness put me out of commission. I didn’t even climb out of bed until 5:30pm, finally able to move. My soon to be thirteen-year-old had kept tabs on me. She fed me half of her Fluffernutter Sandwich in bed, told me about her exciting Sonic the Hedgehog findings, and gave me hugs & kisses. Eventually, my mind and body drifted slowly into sync, and I was able to get going.

At that point I was supposed to start blogging immediately, but the virus the kids gave me last week still kept me otherwise occupied. Plus there was dinner to make, and laundry to move along. Then my soon to be sixteen-year-old came home with her first prom dress, literally glowing so intensely I feared her body would no longer contain its excitement and go super nova in my living room. She also asked me one of those questions that in her mind are supposed to have simple answers, but which represent enormous fleets of icebergs, all hiding hours of discussion underneath the waves. We had one of those discussions tonight. It was far more important than dirty sinks and unwritten blogs.

We Are Connected to Life around Us

I suppose what I am trying to get at is that my family has always been important to me, and that is as it should be. This has been key in my ability to shake off suicidal urges. Life and people in general play havoc with our ToDo lists, getting in the way of Great Things, but through friends and family we are connected to life around us, most especially with children. Those bright spirits with their glorious, independent minds need to be nourished and cared for during the short time they are with us. Then they are off like shooting stars to blaze their own trails through the firmament. I could focus on the emptiness that future separation brings, or I could focus on the interruptions to Great Things those bright spirits bring on a daily basis, but instead I will focus on how they help me stay alive.

Twenty or so years ago I was at a low point in my life. My attempts to treat ADHD had given me a motor tic disorder, while my efforts to treat clinical depression had made me suicidal. Side-effects from psychmeds had sidetracked my life. Although I had flirted artfully with suicidal ideation since I was fifteen, panicking my parents as only fifteen-year-olds who write death poetry can, never before had I actually wanted to put an end to things. I’ve written before about suicide, but have I written enough about why I chose life over death?

All those years ago I sat there with blade to wrist and thought of reasons—any reason!—why I should not bring an end to my pain. I thought of my wife at the time and how heartbroken she would be. I thought of my first daughter and how I took care of her. Who would watch my girl when my former wife went off to work? Who would clean up the crimson mess I would leave behind? What a terribly selfish thing to do to people I supposedly held dearest.

Before that moment, suicide seemed a kind and logical thing to do for my family. To my thinking at the time, I would no longer disappoint my parents. I would no longer be a burden and embarrassment for my wife at the time. My stuff could be given away to friends and brothers. My daughter would never even remember me. I could be easily erased from everyone’s life, and I would no longer hurt. Yet it was all a lie. Suicide warps the way we think. It bends and twists our logic through funhouse mirrors filled with dark clowns and poorly lit futures. Whereas clinical depression feels as if a weight of sadness crushes downward upon me, suicidal depression is a frantic energy filled with self-loathing and violence towards myself, as if I could claw my own heart from my chest to relieve the pain.

Keep a List Forefront in Your Mind

I have reached those low depths from time to time. However, my list of reasons for staying alive has grown with each year. Despite the failures of my life, I have many joys as well. It is with purpose that I mark each joy to recall later when needed. I know now that suicidality is a lie of depression and not to be heeded. In fact, I manage my depression on a daily basis because of the list. If I were to be gripped with suicidal ideation tomorrow, I would remind myself of…

smiling daughters,
pig piles on Daddy,
the generosity and kindness of friends,
chauffeuring parents,
cheerful conversations with strangers,
the readers of this blog,
good typography,
the comforting escapism of Science Fiction television and Fantasy novels,
pulse pounding and heart moving Japanese anime & manga,
breathtaking sunsets on a warm Summer’s eve,
the ephemeral beauty of nature,
the Second Comforter and a loving Redeemer,
the delightful laugh of a woman,
and the transcending power of music.

Some of the joys of my life are in need of a cornucopia of tomorrows, not just one more day, to be fully realized like…

Japanese roleplaying games that never end,
apotheosis and perfection,
art supplies and the hope of using them,
a blank page awaiting words,
stories untold,
and dreams unfulfilled.

In fact, the more I contemplate it, the more I realize that my life is overfilled with reasons to continue living, and not just to continue living, but to live with bright purpose. These things are in themselves not what save me, but together they define the happy, tiny moments that keep me sane. Moments exactly like…

sudden road trips with faeries
prom dress grins,
conversations with the depth of icebergs,
constant interruptions to Great Things,
and Fluffernutter sandwiches.

Life may not work out the way we want or dreamed, but if we make the effort now to store up a list of joys, we can call on them to shine light into the darkness of depression when we are at our lowest. We can choose to live.

 

Friday, January 08, 2016

Saying "No" to Suicide by Douglas R. Cootey

If you or a loved one struggles with suicidism, learn to rethink suicide, and gain coping strategies that work.

 


According to the CDC, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US for all ages. Even if the numbers seem small compared to other causes of death, the hole left in our lives by somebody who took their own life is immense. Saying "NO" to Suicide explores this growing problem in our society by breaking the process of recovery down into steps from developing awareness to developing coping strategies. Cootey uses his own personal experiences, recorded over the past eleven years on his award-winning blog, A Splintered Mind, to explore the different aspects of suicidism and how he successfully retrained his thinking process to escape the downward spiral suicidal ideation creates. He also uses these cases to discuss how family and friends who deal with suicidal people should develop coping strategies of their own.

With honest blog entries, cited studies, footnotes, and candid commentary, Saying "NO" to Suicide helps those who struggle to overcome suicidal urges explore a wide variety of coping strategies, such as humor, cognitive behavior therapies, learned optimism, as well as solutions such as prayer, meditation, or their secular variants. Overcoming suicide requires new ways of thinking to escape negativity, both for the suicidal and those who live with them. Available in iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Scribd & Smashwords.

Only $4.99

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Friday, September 15, 2017

Proving You Can't Even Give a Book on Suicide Away for FREE? #StopSuicide #NSPW17

Another year; another National Suicide Prevention Week has passed. This year I thought it would be a good service to the community if I offered my ebook, Saying “NO” to Suicide, for FREE throughout the week. Since I’d never made my ebooks FREE before, I had no idea what an ordeal this would become. I started last Saturday, and soon Kobo reflected the new price. Yes! Excitement! By midnight, Apple’s iBooks was also reflecting the price. This was going to work! But then World Suicide Prevention Day arrived on the 10th, and neither B&N nor Kindle reflected the newer, freer price. This was a problem because I sell most of my books on Amazon’s Kindle (followed closely by iBooks). I decided to hold off making any announcement until all the sellers matched in price.

B&N changed their price on Monday, which was fine for National Suicide Prevention Week, but Amazon was still unchanged. You see, Amazon doesn’t allow sellers to list their items for $0. Instead, you change the price elsewhere and hope Amazon price matches. After all, that’s what all the tutorials say. Would the internet lie?

By Tuesday, I let people know about the sale, and then begged readers to report the price difference at Amazon to get things moving, but that didn’t work. Then on Wednesday, I contacted KDP help and pointed out the new price myself in a plea with customer service. That did the trick! The price was finally FREE on all platforms by Thursday morning with two days left to the week. I tweeted out the announcement again, and hoped that it would reach people in time.

Who would have thought giving something away for FREE would require so much effort? At least everything is fine now. Too bad I just realized a moment ago that I forgot to blog about it. All week. It’s now Friday. The week is a bit over at this point. Nicely done, ADHD.

The drama that I alluded to in my previous blog entry—the drama that has consumed my life this past year—continued this week. Family comes first, so I focused on meeting their needs, but I have to admit I’m a little frustrated that there is so little time left for me at the end of the day. After all, just because I have to be Ms. Frizzle and Dr. Mark Sloan all at the same time doesn’t mean that I stop being disabled. I manage my depression well, but ADHD still lurks behind bushes, popping out for a neat surprise when I least expect it. Mostly, however, my Tourette’s Syndrome takes me out by the end of the day.

So I limp along. Hello, Friday!

Run and get your copy for FREE while you can. Maybe leave me a kind word at the store where you purchased the book if you find my ebook useful. (Ratings and reviews are so helpful for new authors and new readers.) Even if you don’t suffer from suicidal ideation, this is a good opportunity to gift the book to somebody you feel needs it. Or read it for yourself. Each chapter uses one of my suicide themed blog entries and discusses the coping strategy I used. There are also tips for friends & family who deal with somebody who is suicidal. It’s my best work to date and has been well received by people who have read it. I hope it helps you, too.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait until I raise the price to $2.99 on Sunday evening. I plan on keeping that sale going all through National Suicide Prevention Month. What could go wrong? I’m sure it’ll go smooth as oatmeal yogurt.

~Dˢ

Friday, July 08, 2016

Suicide Prevention: The Sun Always Rises

Chin up! The Sun always rises!

My friend, Paul Tuck, died three years ago today. I’ve been thinking about him lately. I miss his zany and quick humor. I miss his smile and his laugh. To be honest, though, I didn’t like him much when I first met him. He delighted in playing devil’s advocate on any issue that was opposite of where you stood at that moment. My first introduction to Paul was when I was giving him and my friend, Nathan, a ride from some event in Salt Lake City, and he was arguing about the superior quality of 8-bit Nintendo music over the Sega Master System or something, and I couldn’t get him home fast enough. He was a masterful troll. Over the years I learned to understand his humor, and more importantly, recognize when he was having fun with me. I, also, learned to have fun back.

I remember impressing him when I got my Amiga 2500 to run a Mac emulator through a PC emulator. It was terribly slow, and Nathan thought I was insane, but Paul appreciated the mad genius of the moment. Another time I opened a VNC tunnel from my Amiga to my OS/2 PC, and opened a VNC tunnel from my PC back to my Amiga. The screens recursively drew themselves into an infinite loop, like mirrors reflecting eternity. Paul loved geeky stuff like that.

Paul’s suicide hit me hard that summer. I had just begun writing “Saying ‘No!’ to Suicide” the month before when I got the news that he had taken his own life. Sitting in his funeral service, and watching all the grieving family members around me, suddenly gave me the approach I needed for my book. I revised my introduction that night. The rest came easily after that.

The insight I gained was to address both the suicidal loved ones, and those who remained behind. It was a painful perspective that only life can give to you. I had never before had a loved one commit suicide before, and it changed me. It was also when I settled on dawn as a theme for my book. You see, what saved me years ago, and time and again, was that I always knew the sun would rise. Whatever terrible thing I was overwhelmed with at that moment, would evaporate with the morning dew. Paul didn’t have that perspective. I didn’t even know he was struggling. I wish I could have helped him. Maybe I could have made a difference, but time only moves forward. We can’t fix the past.

If you are struggling with suicidal ideation today, I encourage you to reach out to somebody you trust. Don’t carry your burden alone. Depression deceives us, and we don’t always think clearly under its influence. I have a support network I rely on when my depression takes a dark turn for the worse. I’ve, also, found four reasons to live that help me look past the darkness: my daughters. They help me see that dawn is just breaking on the horizon when I might otherwise think I’m drowning in the night.

I’m glad that I have learned to master these dark urges. I haven’t felt suicidal in a long while, and it’s quite a relief. My daughters are relieved as well. The struggle to fight suicidal tendencies can be exhausting, but we truly can train ourselves to change how we think. I can’t help Paul, but hopefully somebody out there is reading my book or my blog and learning that we don’t have to suffer. We can choose to live.

The sun always rises.



I share more thoughts on overcoming suicide in my book. Follow the link to read Chapter One for free right in your browser.

Saturday, September 01, 2018

Helping to Prevent Suicide Only Takes Moments

Knights Jousting by Howard Pyle

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. This means that your social media timelines will suddenly be filled with celebrities sharing the national hotline. The cynic in you may roll your eyes. These celebrities will care very, very deeply in 280 characters; lots of their "show somebody you care" posts will gets thousands of likes and reposts, but where were they on August 31st? Where will they be on October 1st? Chasing a new cause, probably. Mounting their social media steed and charging to the next virtue signal over the hill beyond while shouting, "Don't forget to like and retweet!"

With the sea of hotline tweets will come angry killjoys ranting about how these celebrities don't really care, or they don't care enough, or those hotlines are terrible and they trace your call and alert the police so don't call them guys!

It can all be a bit much.

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Dealing with Suicidal Tendencies? Posting on Social Media Is Not Therapy

Ronnie McNutts last Facebook post

On this World Suicide Prevention Day, I wanted to write to people who hide behind the illusion of strength. They give the appearance of mental well-being by posting excellent advice, uplifting memes, and beautiful quotes, but privately they struggle with the overpowering tidal forces of suicidal depression. When that tide sweeps them away, their friends are left surprised and stunned.

As many of you know, Ronnie McNutt¹ took his own life while live streaming on Facebook last month. It was traumatic and devastating to those who witnessed it. According to his friend, Ronnie was severely drunk, so it’s easy to assume that he might not have been thinking clearly when he posted such a strong, demanding, yet earnest post before ending his own life.

What can we learn from his example?

Ronnie didn’t reach out for help. He posted on Facebook, then, while inebriated, streamed his last moments. That is such an extreme and unusual situation, you may feel you have nothing to learn at all from his actions. Yet Ronnie hid his pain behind a social media post instead of seeking help. This is what I hope to encourage others to not do.

To those of you who hide your pain behind a social media mask, I have a message for you:

Posting upbeat, inspirational posts on social media is not the same thing as getting help.

Don’t treat your social media timeline as if it’s some magic ward against the demons that eat at you. You more than others know the importance of reaching out for help. Please don’t worry about keeping up appearances. If you feel overwhelmed by suicidal tendencies, reach out to those caring and wonderful people in your support network. Find people who listen. Find people who help.

It’s been two years and five months since I last had a suicidal thought. When a suicidal impulse springs to life in my mind, my first coping strategy is to tell somebody about it. I do the opposite of hiding it! Sometimes I tell my daughters. Sometimes I tell a religious leader. I always set up an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist. I immediately seek help. These coping strategies have helped me for over thirty years.

Set up good habits and practice them. Don’t disguise your pain with an illusion. Posting upbeat mental health content isn’t wrong, but it is your responsibility to yourself to ensure posting on social media is not all you do to keep yourself healthy.

If you will find it helpful, please read the articles I have written over the years regarding National Suicide Prevention Month. They are filled with personal anecdotes from my own struggles with depression and suicidal depression, but also tips and ideas to help you overcome your pain.

Please don’t keep it hidden.