Suicide. You get shivers down your spine by just thinking about it. The thought of killing yourself and leaving everything you have behind is unimaginable for you, but for some, it’s the only salvation they know.
You look at everything you have and you see life that exists in every living being.
Everything that surrounds you is full of this amazing miracle, but how does it look like in the mind of someone who only sees their life as a burden?
What’s really inside the mind of a suicidal person?
It always starts with depression. Depression is a very common mental illness that causes people to see the world from the darker side. People with depression have poor concentration.
They have a feeling of low self-worth and guilt. Depression can also be seen in disturbed sleep or eating habits.
The way depression makes them feel is like there is nothing in the world to be happy about.
Seeing only the dark side to everything makes you believe that this life isn’t even worth living, so why even try? Just imagine not being able to enjoy the things you find to be most pleasurable in life: like the hug of a loved one, the sun on your skin or the birds that are singing to you in the morning.
These are just little things that depression doesn’t allow you to enjoy, but what about those big parts of your life that made life joyful and happy? Like your job? Your partner? When you stop enjoying these things, you know it’s a huge red flag that your mind isn’t healthy anymore.
The dangerous part about depression is that self-harm comes with it very often.
Cutting and body mutilations in any form make the depressed person forget about the mental and emotional pain.
I have heard on many occasions that seeing blood coming from their body looks purifying – like all the depression is leaking out through that wound.
What they don’t know is that it’s just a little moment of pleasure that doesn’t mean anything. Instead, it just makes them more and more sick.
What exhausts a suicidal person the most is the constant battle that’s happening within. The constant battle between life and death.
At one moment, you see that the whole world doesn’t make sense and that you’re nothing more than a waste of human skin, but in the next moment, someone comes up to you and shows some basic human decency that makes you believe in the magic of life again.
Night and morning have completely different effects on the brain and those are the two opposite sides someone thinking about suicide has to deal with.
When night falls and everything is so peaceful and quiet, it’s the moment when all those demons come alive and your brain falls victim to them. In the morning, life seems to be pleasurable again but only for a moment or two.
Thinking about all those people you’re leaving behind and thinking about all the pain they inflicted on you.
You’re thinking about how life might look like without you in it and how those people around you will react to losing you.
Are they going to cry? Will it be a happy moment for them to know that they don’t have to deal with you anymore? Are they going to regret what they have done to you? Is it that simple? Who knows?
Living with all these thoughts is exhausting and it doesn’t make it easier to choose between life and death because somehow there are always more of those things that make you want to kill yourself.
All of this brings you to unbearable emotional and mental pain. The pain invades your brain and your skin. It’s everywhere. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing in life.
The pain just becomes more and more unbearable with every moment that goes by.
Your skin hurts from the self-inflicted injuries. Your mind hurts from those thoughts that don’t want to leave your brain and your chest hurts because your heart isn’t able to carry all that burden anymore.
The thing about suicide is that people confuse it with freedom. People with a suicidal mind tend to see freedom in killing themselves, never knowing that living their life fully is actually what makes you completely free. They are more tortured by the thoughts of suicide than by life itself.
People will try to get rid of this never ending pain, trying to find salvation in alcohol, drugs and sex. Anything. Just to numb the pain that is constantly banging against their skulls.
Toxic thoughts occupy their days. Life isn’t easy when you hear those voices in your head telling you that you shouldn’t be on this planet with these people.
Toxic thinking can actually be caused by the smallest things that happen in life. For instance: you are carrying the laundry from one room to another.
You trip and everything falls out of your hands. To someone who doesn’t have a suicidal mind, it’s nothing.
They will pick up the laundry and move on. But for someone who has toxic thoughts it’s not something trivial, but rather makes them think, ”I am so unworthy of this life if I can’t even do this right” or ”I am not even capable of doing this” and so on.
Signs of decline:
How do you know that someone from your surroundings is thinking about committing suicide? Most of the time a suicidal person will turn to alcohol and drug abuse.
It numbs the mind and it seems to be the only salvation out there. Although, people with suicidal tendencies usually seem to be very social, sometimes even happy and party animals.
The fact that they can’t go out with their friends without getting wasted tells you something.
One other sign that they’re surrendering is a change in appetite. Depression can cause the body to simply not respond to usual needs, like hunger.
If someone is depressed and suicidal, they play around with their food, they don’t eat enough and it turns to them being underweight and malnourished.
Losing interest in things they usually liked shows that life simply isn’t as enjoyable as usual.
I know that people change all the time, but losing interest in something overnight and not wanting to do the things that were making you happy and that made life a bit easier means that you can’t see the meaning of those things anymore.
You don’t even know why you’re trying when life doesn’t have meaning anymore.
My story
The things I have talked about above are from a very rational perspective and are very generalized, but how does it actually look ?
I can tell you from my personal experience with toxic thoughts and a suicidal mindset.
I was never a ‘depressed’ person. I loved my life very much but when people started to tell me that I always complained and that I didn’t smile enough, I started to question whether or not I was just putting on a mask.
When I would come home at night, my mind wouldn’t let me sleep and at this time of the day, the temperature of my body would rise. I would feel sick physically because of what my mind was telling me.
I was very young when I experienced all of this and I didn’t know how to handle anything.
I won’t go into much detail because it might be a trigger for some readers and I don’t want that, but at one point, my mind started to tell me that the whole world would be better off without me and that I shouldn’t be a burden to people around me anymore.
In my head, those people had to deal with me and my constant complaints, so I started to keep everything inside me and I stopped talking at all.
My parents just thought that it was a teenage phase and that they shouldn’t be paying attention to me, but I needed more attention than ever before.
My grades dropped and I stopped doing sports. Why would I? No one wanted me around.
I didn’t want to be around myself, so why would anyone else? There was no meaning in life itself. ”Why would I want to live if I’m going to die anyways? It doesn’t matter if I die today or in twenty years, does it?”
I wouldn’t want you to know how hard it is to deal with these emotions and thoughts every day.
It’s like being trapped in a cycle of the same words coming into your mind: worthless, never enough, hateful, miserable, abandoned.
Instead of searching for help, I continued to draw within myself. Life seemed to be unfair. I didn’t do much to make it better though.
I blamed myself for everything, never seeing that perhaps someone else was at fault for how I felt. When people would bully me, I always thought that I deserved it because of how miserable and stupid I was.
At one point, the people I called my friends started to tell me how happy I was. That I was more sociable than ever. I knew about that transformation of mine because I didn’t want anyone to see how I felt inside.
I would go out to parties and drink so much that I couldn’t even walk.
Those people I called friends made me take drugs because ”it’s cool” and you ”don’t want to be a pussy”.
And you know what? It made me feel good. It made me feel numb to all the pain and misery I was feeling.
I started to become more and more serious about drug use and it’s what made me believe that I was truly happy and satisfied, at least for one moment of my life.
The only people who saw my depression were my parents, but they didn’t do much about it. I don’t blame them. They didn’t know that my mind was telling me to leave them behind and to jump out of the window just to make their lives a little less miserable.
When I stopped showing myself at the dinner table and I stopped eating completely, they started to get concerned. ”What is happening to you? Why are you so ungrateful? You’re too young to be depressed!” and so on.
When my dad insisted on talking with me about what was happening, I told him that I was suicidal, that my mind was telling me to cut a bit deeper, to walk a little slower across the street and to walk a bit closer to the edges on top of buildings.
When I repeated that I was suicidal, his only response was ”aren’t we all?”
I was shaken for a moment because I didn’t realise what he was telling me.
I got mad because he didn’t care if I killed myself or not. He just slowly walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Again. I was furious and I was alone.
But my body couldn’t let go of his words and then I started thinking about losing everyone in my life who meant so much to me.
I thought about his words like I was about to lose everyone to suicide. My life would be empty and I would I ask myself for the rest of my days why did it have to happen this way and why couldn’t I stop them for doing this?
From that day on, I started to see everyone in my life as someone who could fall victim to suicide and what I would tell them if they came up to me, telling me that they wanted to kill themselves.
The only thing I could think of was ”Just don’t do it!” I couldn’t find a reasonable explanation then, but I can now.
I started going to a therapist who told my parents that I was going to be fine because I didn’t want to commit suicide anymore, knowing what it would do to people around me.
My mother burst into tears as never before and she told me that she would be a ‘better mom’ from now on. That’s why I decided to be a better daughter.
The support from my therapist, my parents and the fact that I discarded all the toxic people around me who didn’t know how to help me really made an impact.
I surrounded myself with positivity that helped me see the wonders of life and the joy of every day that no one should leave behind. I thanked God for not letting me commit suicide. I thanked Him from the bottom of my heart.
HOW TO HELP A SUICIDAL PERSON
After everything I have told you let me tell you that helping a suicidal person isn’t that easy.
You have to firstly protect yourself from their toxic thoughts and you have to be strong enough for them not to affect you and your mood.
If you are not sure that you can do this, then maybe it’s better to simply lead them to a therapist who can help them out in much better ways than you can.
1. Make them feel needed
The best way to show a suicidal person that suicide is not the answer is to make them feel wanted and needed in society.
Show them how lonely you would be if they left you and show them that their life really does have an impact on this world. Make them believe that there is nothing more sacred than their breath and their presence.
2. Care
It really does make a change when people care about your well-being and when they ask you how you are and so on.
Life becomes easier when you see that there’s someone out there who cares enough to ask how your day went.
So don’t let a suicidal person be alone with their thoughts, but make them verbalize what they are thinking. Make them see that someone cares enough to listen what’s going on inside their head.
3. Don’t try to find a solution
Don’t you think that they have already thought about every possible solution? When you’re depressed, it’s not because you have a reason to be sad, but it’s a mental illness that doesn’t allow you to be happy no matter what.
That’s why you shouldn’t be telling them to have a balanced diet because it will make them feel better or to try using healing crystals.
Those things do not work. Instead ask, ” What can I do for you now?” and take them to a therapist if they’re not in therapy already.
4. Encourage therapy
I can’t stress this enough, but going into therapy works wonders. Therapists don’t get emotionally involved with their clients which means that they can have a completely rational solution for them.
Therapists are there to help us get mentally stable and help us resolve all the remaining issues from our past. If anyone can help them, it’s a therapist.
5. Don’t judge, understand
People who have a suicidal mind often don’t accept help because of the fact that everyone around them will judge them for what they’re thinking and feeling.
Don’t do that. Make them feel understood and like they’re in a safe space when they’re talking with you.
6. Be gentle
Don’t force yourself on them. A universal need is empathy and if you get easily triggered, if you get easily mad by words or something between those lines, then try to get a hold of yourself and don’t let those emotions get the best of you.
Suicidal people don’t want someone who will yell without any particular reason but actually someone who will be gentle and empathetic, no matter how much of a mess they are right now.
