Suicide and self-harm [Warning: Might be triggering]

I've had a very easy run of life, and was driven to the Internet by being a product of my generation rather than as an escape from the real world, as so many people on this site and the Internet in general have done. I've never had a suicidal thought in my life nor have I ever intentionally self-harmed, so I can say that I do not understand suicide, suicidal thoughts or self-harm one bit. My thoughts are on the whole quite unemotional, I use logic above all else and I find that makes it easier to cut through most of the problems I face without letting them interfere with my feelings.

But I really want to understand. As Harley said, there's no logic in it and I think that's where I get stumped. I do understand the logical facts of depression from what I've read and been told, but that helps shockingly little when you're trying to help someone going through it.

I have a friend who is suicidal and another one that used to self-harm in high school, and just recently I've started noticing cuts on his arms again. I don't really know what to do or say to either of them. I do try but even as I finish each sentence I know it's going to be of no help, and I'm also quite gun-shy about it because I've learned from other previous encounters with people with depression that they're quite easily annoyed when people who can't empathise try to help them.
 
DuckieIsAdorbz said:
As a former self-harmer, I can say that it does have a nice feeling. The physical pain is a temporary distraction from emotional pain.
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Damn girl that's truthy as fuck. I don't do this myself but I have had friends confront me about it and they're always so embarrassed about it. But why though? I've seen it so many times I can't help but feel that it's a legitimate response to how someone is feeling. I don't know why someone would look at emotion through the eyes of logic.
 
I don't mind talking about my issues, so I'll state that I am the friend that Andy is talking about. Just so it's easier to understand in terms of past/present tense and details and what not. I'm not the high school one. I don't do continued self harm like cutting, that has never been something I understood. I mean, I get why people do it, but it's not something that comes into my mind when I'm feeling particularly, idk, subjugated.

With me, I've had more than my fair share of shit piled on top of me for as long as I can remember. I won't list the specifics right now, but the point is that there is a reason why I've been on strong SSRIs for over a decade. Depression & other mental problems are fairly common in my family, so I probably would have had one illness or another from sheer genetic luck, but I instead developed major depression & anxiety as a result of all the situations I've been thrown into in my relatively short life. Gender dysphoria is probably the biggest contributing factor as of right now, especially during the times when I feel suicidal. As for what living with mental illness is like, well... hmm. Some people talk about it coming in waves, some people talk about it being a constant. I think I'm a combination of the two. I'm constantly depressed, but it's not bad enough that it leaves me unable to think rationally about my life. I've been living with it for so long that it's normal to me. It's not right, but it's what I do. Sometimes though, the depression becomes so focused and impossible to wade my way out of that I feel suicidal. Usually, it's an awful feeling that I know that I won't act upon, even though I genuinely want to. My self-loathing and dysphoria amplifies a thousand times each second, I'm determined to prove that every person I call a friend actually despises me, my will to wake up the next day flatlines. As I said in an earlier post, my logic and my thought processes become distorted. It makes walking in front of a bus seem like an action that's freeing.

It's torture in every sense of the word.

Shining Raichu said:
I have a friend who is suicidal and another one that used to self-harm in high school, and just recently I've started noticing cuts on his arms again. I don't really know what to do or say to either of them. I do try but even as I finish each sentence I know it's going to be of no help, and I'm also quite gun-shy about it because I've learned from other previous encounters with people with depression that they're quite easily annoyed when people who can't empathise try to help them.
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It's not that it's of no help, it's just that it's no help right that second. When you're that ill, nothing that anybody says can help you. You just don't care. Often I find myself blatantly denying whatever a person is saying to me when I'm feeling suicidal, only to look upon it later when I'm in a clear frame of mind and almost believe them for a moment. You want to believe what the person is saying, but there's always a part of you that finds a way to convince you otherwise. But the key is wanting to believe them, wanting to see what they see in you. Wanting to want liberation from your illness is the first step to recovery. Such a moment is rare for me, but it's the only reason why I bother to go on.
 
Harley Quinn said:
I don't mind talking about my issues, so I'll state that I am the friend that Andy is talking about. Just so it's easier to understand in terms of past/present tense and details and what not. I'm not the high school one. I don't do continued self harm like cutting, that has never been something I understood. I mean, I get why people do it, but it's not something that comes into my mind when I'm feeling particularly, idk, subjugated.

With me, I've had more than my fair share of shit piled on top of me for as long as I can remember. I won't list the specifics right now, but the point is that there is a reason why I've been on strong SSRIs for over a decade. Depression & other mental problems are fairly common in my family, so I probably would have had one illness or another from sheer genetic luck, but I instead developed major depression & anxiety as a result of all the situations I've been thrown into in my relatively short life. Gender dysphoria is probably the biggest contributing factor as of right now, especially during the times when I feel suicidal. As for what living with mental illness is like, well... hmm. Some people talk about it coming in waves, some people talk about it being a constant. I think I'm a combination of the two. I'm constantly depressed, but it's not bad enough that it leaves me unable to think rationally about my life. I've been living with it for so long that it's normal to me. It's not right, but it's what I do. Sometimes though, the depression becomes so focused and impossible to wade my way out of that I feel suicidal. Usually, it's an awful feeling that I know that I won't act upon, even though I genuinely want to. My self-loathing and dysphoria amplifies a thousand times each second, I'm determined to prove that every person I call a friend actually despises me, my will to wake up the next day flatlines. As I said in an earlier post, my logic and my thought processes become distorted. It makes walking in front of a bus seem like an action that's freeing.

It's torture in every sense of the word.



It's not that it's of no help, it's just that it's no help right that second. When you're that ill, nothing that anybody says can help you. You just don't care. Often I find myself blatantly denying whatever a person is saying to me when I'm feeling suicidal, only to look upon it later when I'm in a clear frame of mind and almost believe them for a moment. You want to believe what the person is saying, but there's always a part of you that finds a way to convince you otherwise. But the key is wanting to believe them, wanting to see what they see in you. Wanting to want liberation from your illness is the first step to recovery. Such a moment is rare for me, but it's the only reason why I bother to go on.
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Love you x

(I didn't feel right about liking the post so I had to acknowledge it another way)
 
Outside of some random impulses during my lifetime where I considered taking the next best car, I've never had any moment when I actually wanted to suicide. Most of those impulses where generated during moments when I felt really miserable. I actually can only remember two instances, now that I think about it, but I guess having these even once isn't really desirable.

Now, over the last couple years I managed to get myself into a constant state of misery. I barely leave my room, unless I have to and I'm definitely not getting much sunlight, that's for sure. Surrounding myself in complete solitude, whenever I find myself in any kind of trouble (which there isn't much, considering that I'm not doing much, anyway), I just tell myself "if you have trouble, why not suicide?". I'm actually afraid of killing myself, which is why I won't do it the direct way. Instead I'd rather resort to unhealthing food, constant negativity combined with cynism (which just developed over the last couple month) to get myself to an ever lower low, hoping to someday just give up any hope there is left and just end it. Does this count as self-harming, or does that term only describe any physical harm? If it doesn't, then I never harmed myself.

But I suppose there are more then enough people who have it worse than me.
 
i personally think that self-harm and suicide is a no-no. this doesnt help you as if it's self harm, then the problem won't go away and you'll keep hurting yourself for no good reason and if it's suicide, then firstly, its unfair to yourself as you throw your life and any potential it could have had even if you don't see that and secondly, if you still have your family, you might want to consider their feelings as although you may think that its selfish and its your life and all but you could end up hurting your brother/sister/father and if you still have one, mother which is the one who gets hurt the most. There are many times where you wanna stop living but your mother has probably had a bigger share and to be honest she could have an abortion and said "screw it im not gonna give birth to this child, it's my life and i choose what i'll do with it" (but maybe not screw it as that is a bit harsh) and so you have to realize that you are wasting the sacrifice your mother made for you and the hard labour to just give birth to you and to feed you, wash you, help you walk and talk and take u to school, to let u sleep in a bed that many dream of having and instead sleep on rusty and dirty pavements.

Unless someone can tell me a good reason why its ok to do self-harm or end your life, i say no and that it's complete idiocy no matter how you look at it

p.s plz tell me thou because i just love to learn
 
i've dealt with depression all my life and i've been taking medications since i've been 12. depression runs in my family and i lost my grandma because she committed suicide. i've had suicidal thoughts, attempts, and i've hurt myself. i'm much better than i have been since i'm gonna be getting the help i finally need. hopefully i can find the right psychologist for me. if someone you know is having these feelings, i highly recommend you talk to them. my family and my boyfriend have been there for every step up of the way.
 
I've never had any thoughts of suicide, because it's much too frightening to even think about fading into nothing (although it's inevitable, but most likely not for another 60+ years at least).

Which brings me to a very debated point - no, it is not selfish or cowardly. It's diabolical to even consider, which is why I don't think it can be seen as something to push aside. The real thing is that people would be bullied hard enough to even be brought to that very point.
 
Hopefully Thank god i had not have ever suicidal thoughts in my life and i always try to never got that type of thoughts in my entire life.I think People commit suicides due to their neighbourhood enviroment or They find suicide a way to escape from their sufferings and problems.I think both suicide and self harm is totally wrong.I remembered when i was a small kid,in my neighbourhood there is a boy commited suicide by jumping from 3rd floor of his house.I see whole that Incident with my eyes and i really got scared at that time,as i hardly recover my mental stress,i think it took me around one month to recover.But today if i thought about that incident, I feel really scared till now..........
 
I've had thoughts about it, but never tried to actually do it. That stemmed from me finding myself to be more of a pain to others than anything else, in particular peers in high school. I don't know what it was about freshman year but when you get to that point, it's really hard to not get away from it. Kids also don't realize how screwed up some of the things they say are. Just two days ago I had this guy that was standing outside a class waiting for our teacher with me hear me talking to some other students and say that he found my voice annoying.

I thought it was uncalled for and not only that, no one was talking to him in the first place. That's my argument for why a lot of those encounters occurred. I would just being doing something or say something aloud and they feel a need to comment. Most of what they had to say wasn't that good either. Ironically, just two years ago, I encountered a classmate who said he was entertained by my voice. Can't please everyone.

That's kind of the way I started looking at it and what brought me back from getting closer to the point of no return. I just kept reminding myself that I've been given some really good compliments and some really bad ones. I don't know what it is, but I figured I can't take everything to heart when it's a mixed bag.
 
fortunately i never had to witness first hand the quagmire of depression or dealing with depressed friends. but I could only begin to try to sympathize with those have suffered depression.

only time I've really ever been close to being depressed is when I first came to the united states with only my mother. it was tough at first with different culture, language, lifestyle (and missing my father), but gradually I got used to it and now I am grateful to be where I am.

it's a cliche at this point, but suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. however, it's important here to condemn the act itself and not the person committing the act (which also sounds like another cliche).
 
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