Suicide

If You are Sui­ci­dal…

 You are not alone. I am very pleased that you are read­ing this. And let me remind you that there is noth­ing more impor­tant than your life. Noth­ing. The first thing you should know is that vir­tu­al­ly every per­son who has attempt­ed sui­cide, and sur­vived, was glad that they lived. So the emo­tions that were caus­ing the sui­ci­dal feel­ings did pass. Things got bet­ter; the sun did come out. So, let me extend that hope to you.

If you are in intense emo­tion­al and/or phys­i­cal pain, remem­ber that, that pain is cloud­ing your judg­ment. If you are con­sid­er­ing sui­cide, you are try­ing to end that pain. Please do not con­fuse end­ing your pain with end­ing your life. The two are very dif­fer­ent.

Let me also tell you that if you are sui­ci­dal, you prob­a­bly are suf­fer­ing from clin­i­cal depres­sion, bipo­lar dis­or­der, schiz­o­phre­nia, post­par­tum depres­sion, PTSD, or some­thing sim­i­lar. And if you have some­thing along these lines, you actu­al­ly have a chem­i­cal imbal­ance in your brain — and you can­not pos­si­bly think straight because of it. That is beyond your con­trol. You are not weak. You just need some treat­ment. This imbal­ance can occur for sev­er­al rea­sons, from genet­ics to a trau­mat­ic life expe­ri­ence, and it is extreme­ly com­mon for peo­ple to have this imbal­ance, so do not feel like you are alone. You are not. This imbal­ance may be rec­ti­fied in sev­er­al ways, but first you need to be assessed so that the cause may be under­stood. I would request that you please go to a med­ical doc­tor.

The doc­tor can deter­mine if there is a sec­ondary prob­lem (such as a thy­roid prob­lem) that is caus­ing the imbal­ance. If so, an appro­pri­ate med­ica­tion may be pre­scribed to you. Next, you should vis­it a ther­a­pist. This will allow anoth­er assess­ment to occur and will also allow you to begin talk­ing about your feel­ings. If the ther­a­pist deter­mines that you need a pre­scrip­tion, he or she may refer you to some­one who may assist you in that area.

Please leave the option open for tak­ing med­ica­tion. Some peo­ple erro­neous­ly believe that they can sim­ply use will pow­er to con­trol their sui­ci­dal feel­ings. The prob­lem with this think­ing is that, again, there is prob­a­bly a chem­i­cal imbal­ance in the brain. And that needs to be treat­ed with med­i­cine. So let me ask you this. If you had a bro­ken leg, would you get treat­ment or would you just keep walk­ing on it, writhing in pain, and try­ing to con­vince your­self that you just need­ed will pow­er to over­come the pain? You would get treat­ment, and you would do so imme­di­ate­ly. You would not even think twice about it. And I would most respect­ful­ly sub­mit to you that your sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar. If you are diag­nosed with clin­i­cal depres­sion, or some­thing sim­i­lar, then there is a phys­i­cal cause for your con­di­tion. And you need to seek treat­ment imme­di­ate­ly. It is not just emo­tion. Please under­stand this. The brain, after all, is an organ. And some­times needs treat­ment.

After your ini­tial assess­ment, you will need to see a ther­a­pist long enough to work through all of the issues that are both­er­ing you. Do not be in a hur­ry — things will get bet­ter. You may feel like you are on an emo­tion­al roller coast­er ride, but those ups and downs will lev­el out.

Thank you so very much for read­ing this. It means a lot to me because the mere fact you are read­ing this indi­cates that you are reach­ing out, and that you real­ly do want to live. So, I want you to do some­thing else that is very impor­tant. Please make a com­mit­ment to stay alive. To not die by sui­cide, no mat­ter what. Make this com­mit­ment for all of the peo­ple who care for you, and for your­self. Remem­ber that if you try to end your pain by end­ing your life, you will start a world of pain for the loved ones that you leave behind. And you will deprive your­self of many won­der­ful things that you have yet to expe­ri­ence. Thank you for mak­ing that com­mit­ment.

One final thing. Relax. That’s right. Relax. Take some deep breaths and do some­thing that you enjoy that relax­es you. Take a bath. Go for a walk. Lis­ten to some nice music. Just take it easy. And engage in these activ­i­ties that relax you on a reg­u­lar basis. You are on your way to a bet­ter life.

Down­load­able Doc­u­ments:

SUICIDE is nev­er the ANSWER