22 years ago I went through a fairly strange time: I was depressed, disconnected, and feeling deeply alone. It culminated in a very violent suicide attempt. Despite all my plans and precautions I was found still alive and hospitalised. Being young and antisocial I never went back to therapy and for a few months afterwards I kept going back to the idea of trying it again.

The turning point for me was realising that suicide was in fact an option. Admittedly a pretty drastic option, but one nonetheless. Neither was it 'the easy way out', or 'for the weak'. Destroying one's own life isn't a spur of the moment decision, similar to deciding which tart one should have for tea, etc. Driven by desperation, or severe pain, it is a momentous decision and the consequences are irreversible - no one who really makes the decision does so lightly.

The understanding that it was an option, gave me a feeling of control. Since it was an option and one that I could take at any time, I had some level of control over my situation. If that was an option, then perhaps there were other options. I decided to explore other options. I haven't been there in 18 years but I still know what it feels like.

We are adults. At your worst times, don't be intimidated by ignorant misconceptions about suicide. It is your mind, you have the right to explore it, and you have the right to make whatever decision you feel is correct for you. Just remember that if there is one way of resolving an issue there may just be another way, one that is less violent, less irreversible; one that may just provide further options, one that may eventually lead to happiness, however remote that may appear at the moment.

At a time (a few years ago) when I really didn't want to go on, this was one of the things that prevented me from attempting suicide again: The possibility of surviving it again, knowing how negatively that would impact my life. My life was hard enough at the time without inflicting additional suffering on myself and also getting labeled "crazy" or something (plus potentially being saddled with additional medical bills, etc). A lot of people living with the kind of chronic pain and suffering (due to a health issue) that I was living with do think about killing themselves. "Bars do not a prison make". A body that tortures you ever single minute of every day is a pretty bleak prison to live with.

But I also was actively working on resolving the underlying problem that made me wish I were dead. I think that is a critical detail missing from a lot of the encouragement offered when this topic comes up. In fact, spending a year at death's door was very empowering for me in that regard because it freed me up from fear of doing something socially unacceptable. I never know how to properly express this, but I lived and began getting well because I stopped trying to dutifully keep myself alive and, instead, my one and only goal became to hurt less. I was rather annoyed when I realized that my efforts to hurt less were actually killing the infections the doctors didn't know how to kill because I realized it meant I faced a long, very hard recovery. I would have welcomed death 10 or 11 years ago because I was in constant excruciating pain and couldn't sleep and every minute of the day was torment. So in some sense I came to a point where my attitude was "fuck societal expectation -- what do I want?" Given what a people-pleasing doormat I tend towards, this had a very positive impact on my life.

What I am trying to convey is: If you are suicidal, if your problems are so bad that death is something you would consider, that fact can be used to say "well, why not also consider this long list of other stuff (ie possible solutions/options) I wouldn't normally consider because it's socially unacceptable/my mom wouldn't approve/whatever?" When I stopped being at death's door, I had to work at keeping alive that mental space for saying "fuck societal opinion -- what do I want?" because my innate wiring makes societal opinion way the hell too important to me. I made a conscious choice to find some way to keep that standard alive for myself, to say "hell, what's the worst that could happen? Oh, someone might disapprove? And that fucking matters why?"

Anyway, I hope that makes some small smidgeon of sense to someone. I find it a very difficult concept to express.

I also felt Reg was off the mark (although perhaps not to the extent that you do), but that's why i messaged him what i thought was the real issue. I think it's important to communicate what that feeling is.

So many people misunderstand the actual nature of suicidal tendencies. They think that it's just about someone feeling alone, or unhappy or whatever. But those feelings all have "normal" analogues such that a person that's never felt seriously depressed will misunderstand what that hole is truly like on the inside.

True depression is knowing that not being is an option equally viable to being.

And that's a feeling, or an understanding of the world that can't be reasoned with. All others can do is make the choice of "not being" less convenient of a choice than "being". Whether that's trying to make a connection and rekindle one's interests in something, or dragging someone out to do something (which should be done carefully), or simply being present. Regardless i don't think people appreciate what it is they can or should do to keep someone else moored/tethered to the reality where being vs not being is an equal proposition.

There's a quote by David Foster Wallace that states it better:

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

Have you ever felt like there was no point to your life after a bad breakup? Ever felt inconsolable after a close friend or relative died? That's the feeling. Grief has a purpose and people know how to help those in grief. Most understand that grief brings with it physical illness: tiredness, memory loss, eating disorders, anxiety (sometimes even stomach ulcers, hair-loss, skin problems etc). People understand that grief can last a year (or more) but with help the grieving can be brought back to functionality within a few months.

Real depression is rogue grief. It is an illness that destroys lives and kills. It usually comes without trigger and without reason.

Real depression works like a tsunami: each depression comes as a wave that often overlaps with the last. As you ride one wave out and begin to return to normality another wave crashes in. Sadness and pain becomes the normality and you begin to feel like you are drowning: if you let go and let it take you then at least the pain will go away. Won't it?.

It annoys me when people who have never experienced the pain of depression are quick to dismiss those who commit suicide as selfish. They are often the same people who would help a loved one die if they were in extreme physical pain.

The few times I have been close to the brink, I wasn't even sure there was a distinction to be made anymore between being and not being. It was like drowning in nothingness.

Dismissing a serious, dangerous and often fatal illness as something that can be cured by 'rebalancing your chakras' is akin to using homeopathy to cure cancer.

While I suspect those with mild mood disorders may be able to think their way out of a lethargic period those with a serious depression need real help.

Depression is a big killer:

• suicide is the 8th leading cause of death in the United States

• 15% of those who are clinically depressed die by suicide

• The majority of suicide attempts are expressions of extreme distress that need to be addressed, and not just a harmless bid for attention

*For example, taking a drug will not relieve the depression caused by the loss of a loved one.

If you have been living in a certain way all of your life, you have little to compare to. If you speak to someone about how you live, what problems you have, how you've tried to solve them, you'll be amazed at what you might discover from just speaking with people about it.

Open up, the worst thing that can is that the person doesn't want to listen. Then find someone else who might.

My 5p.

PS. I've been feeling depressed, anxious and stressed for the most part of my life, after many years of effort I managed to get myself to see a psychologist (CBT) and it's without doubt the best thing I have ever done. DS.

I waver a lot on the "Suicide is a selfish act" business. On one hand you're right, it's your life an no one can obligate you to live it. It's very empowering to know that you've got the option to end it. On the other, someone out there needs you more than you think. And I still don't believe a person who wants to end their life is totally rational, at least not for the most part.

But that kind of talk leads to the worse feeling of all, the feeling of being trapped. And that's the problem with "suicide help" posts. You read them and at the end you feel trapped. And being trapped and suicidal is more scary than just being suicidal.

I don't know what I think. But I do hope that most people who feel suicidal get help of some sort. Not because I don't think it's their right, but because I've been on both sides of the problem. To have people depend on you, I mean really depend on you and to be afraid to let them down is a terrible feeling because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. But then to actually be let down by someone else is also pretty terrible.

So, even if it's an option to end your life, it's also an option to get some help for that feeling.

Is it any less selfish of others to force you to stay around and endure terrible pain (physical or emotional) because they need you? I certainly agree that you can and should get help, but I also think that there are cases when the "suicide is selfish" people are the selfish ones. Though, I'm sure that they're not as common as the cases where the person should have sought help instead, I don't think its helpful to somebody contemplating suicide to say that they are being selfish or doing something stupid. If it were me, it would probably make me feel worse.

This isn't always the case, even if it seems that way to outside observers, though I definitely agree that it usually is and that suicide should never ever be taken lightly. Most problems are temporary and seem a lot worse at the time than they really are.

I hope those people can get help.

Agreed.

I'm glad that recognizing this was a viable option was valuable to you. In general, I think it would be valuable to analytical people, the type that frequent HN.

For the average Joe, however, I think it is probably a mistake. Most people are not analytical thinkers, and once an idea gets into their heads they do not know how to react to it. Psychiatrists try to get people to stop thinking about suicide because statistically that will save more people's lives. (I'm not a psychiatrist, but have had plenty of training on suicide counseling as a naval officer.)

I read somewhere that of the people who make half-hearted attempts to commit suicide, about 10% eventually kill themselves. Realizing it is a choice and not a valid cry for help is not likely to be a bad thing.

I once knew a bus driver that confided in me that she was once in her childhood ready to commit suicide (ready as in all preparations made and about to commit the act), and realized the same thing, that she was in control of her life at that point. She wasn't an analytical thinker. So maybe there is something to this realization.

FWIW, you are supposed to ask them if they have suicidal thoughts, and get them to explain at length what their plans are. Getting things out in the open is always good.

When you said that it helped when you realized that suicide is a perfectly valid option and you're free to choose it or dismiss it as you see fit, you touched your own life. The one you could continue or end, the one where your choices actually affect yourself only.

I think it's better to contemplate whether to end your own life than to try to live someone else's. Then you're bound to realize that your life will steer towards what you decide and what you think, instead of as if your life was a car that's being chauffeured along a predefined route that you don't particularly like.

I'll edit this in the evening to continue with a short recount of my own similar experience.

You can only delete or edit your posts for a limited time.

And it surely will also be an interesting perspective, to look back on what how you thought of things in the early days.

IMHO (and experience) 'time changes everything' ... and I really mean everything. The only way to test this is by giving more time. As you are rightly giving yourself.

Wish you all the best!

For a person in such a moment, the first advice must be: Hold on. You can, at some point, see more clearly, and then see way out and up. Then: Reach for help. If help fails, revert to first advice. Never stop holding on.

I'm not saying you don't make sense. (And not saying you do, I think you're absolutely wrong about both the morality and possible rationality of suicide.) I'm saying you are trying to talk sense to a population that isn't really in a position to make use of sense.

The comment about morality / rationality was just a reservation of agreement, on a point that I'm saying isn't actually pertinent to the parent comment's stated audience. I wouldn't pretend for a moment that I've offered anything like an argument on morality.

The lack of empathy in the responses to your post is actually pretty sick, the best thing you can do for someone who is depressed is to try to understand, to listen to them, and to help them relax.

I think people sometimes forget what it feels like to be depressed, and how great the need to not be depressed can be.

I also find it hard to believe that some people live their life without at least considering suicide once. It doesn't mean I think it's near the best answer to life, but it's a lot better then some other things people do in life, and I think people have the right to decide what happens with their life.

If I may suggest something, you should go read Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity". He was a very influential man who thought that some ideas in Zen Buddhism could be used as very powerful forms of psychotherapy, and on a more personal note I've found that some of the ideas in that book have helped me feel very peaceful and at home in the worst of my times.

It's the only book of his I've read so far, but it was really great (and short) and I plan on reading more. In 'The Wisdom of Insecurity' he talks about how too much people compare their present with their expectations of an impossible future, and with a misrepresented past. He talks a bit about God and religion, but I don't think it was so much a religious book as it was a book about a way of life.

For some extra Hacker News cred he liked to discuss about cybernetics, semantics, quantum physics, and sex. Seriously, if you ever contemplate suicide or even just feel inadequate then go to a library on a Saturday, and get the book; you can easily read it in a day and I think it'll make you feel better.

Me? I could write lots of stuff about what I experienced over the last couple of years, but I'm done doing them the favor.

and I can take or leave it if I please.

So, right. I have no pity for people who choose to make or wallow in their own problems. Why should I? I reserve my empathy for people who don't have enough to eat, people who got cheated, falsely imprisoned, wrongly executed, were victims of racism, domestic violence, rape, slavery, forced prostitution, and child abuse; or who through no fault of their own had the bad luck to be born in Burma or North Korea. Not people who had the amazing good luck to be born in a first-world country where it rains antidepressants, distractions and opportunities, and who find so much time to spend navel-gazing that they finally hate themselves and want to die.

Followed by: Four of my friends attempted suicide in high school, and one succeeded. It made me angry. How dare they be so stupid.

I'm sorry you got burned. Sounds like you are still hurting. It's an unfortunate nuisance when someone who is hurting disrupts a forum over it. I've done that a billion times (and counting, no doubt), so I'm not pointing fingers. Just trying to point something out to you, in hopes it might help you move on: Anger and denying that you feel anything are basically defense mechanisms. Maybe you haven't really fully mourned your loss. The woman who founded MADD said at some point that she didn't really mourn the loss of her child for many years. She threw herself into founding MADD and all that basically to avoid dealing with her own feelings. I've spent plenty of my life terrified of being alone with my own feelings. It's really not an uncommon reaction to something terrible happening.

Anyway, it's meant in a supportive way, FWIW.

Take care.

I have lost two friends to suicide. One was an Iraq War veteran who didn't get the help she needed on returning to the states and committed suicide about a year later. The other was a man who had for a long time, I think, suffered from more than one neurological issue.

In the end, I think that people have a right to decide for themselves how they live and how they die. I don't think suicide is always a stupid thing to do. May key question is whether someone is competent to make that decision. Depression or PTSD are not good reasons IMO. However, what of someone struggling with a lifetime of schizophrenia?

And there are plenty of circumstances where I would commit suicide. For example, if I am ever faced with an alzheimer's diagnosis, I would prefer to end my life with clear thought and memory than to let them slowly fade away.

Depression is the cause of over two-thirds of suicides in the U.S. each year.

Depression is a terminal illness: it kills 15% of its sufferers.

Depression is no more 'wallowing in their own problems' than cancer or Alzheimer’s. Depression is an illness caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. It has physical as well as mental symptoms. It is very common in young white men (of all classes) and it kills 20,000 in the U.S. every year. I wouldn't be surprised if Depression was the biggest killer of Y-Combinator readers.

Depression gets a bad rap because it shares the word people use when they are feeling a bit fed up. Depression feels nothing like that. It feels like death.

Try living with a cancer sufferer. Try living with an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Most young men with a mild flu are a nightmare to live with. Tough shit: that's illness: it's grim. People with terminal illnesses are grim company.

Why is it OK to say these things about Depression sufferers? Would you say them about someone with terminal cancer? If you did you would, quite rightly, be called out as a dick.

And what right is it of yours to be angry? What right is it of yours to judge their decision? Those who react this way are the most disgustingly selfish people.

Quite a judgmental statement, to tell someone who's been through it four times what his reaction should be. Maybe it's something I've thought through and been through a few times, and decided that blunt force rather than kid-gloves is the only way to get through to people who want to take their own life.

My father killed himself when I was in high school after numerous failed attempts and a period of institutionalisation. A couple of years later a close friend killed himself, then an acquaintance a bit after that. I've suffered clinical depression most of my adult life, never seriously contemplated suicide but have thought deeply on it for many years.

Now that I've established my credibility by daring anyone to challenge my sad tale, let me tell you that to me your post reads like an excuse to be a righteous loud mouth on the topic of suicide without having to get involved with any of the ugly and complicated realities.

Suicide has touched your life. Doesn't make you an expert.

I don't know anyone who's survived an attempt, or who's been depressed enough to talk about it, who hasn't had better days afterwards. One of my friends is still -- well, sick, I think is the word for it. I've seen how too much sympathy just feeds suicidal thoughts and self-absorption. Talk about anything other than their problem. Get them out of the house. I've seen how being occupied with something brings her back to reality, and makes her 99% better. I'm not unthinkingly being a righteous loud-mouth; I realize my approach to the subject may rub the wrong way on people who think that talking can solve everything.

I don't know if you've been in a situation where you've been thrown into being the default "therapist" for someone you love, who refused to seek help and was telling you that they were considering killing themselves. I have. You'd probably think based on my statements that I'd be such a rotten bastard, it's hard to imagine anyone confiding in me, but it seems to work the opposite way. Maybe people want to hear something blunt. At any rate, there's nothing I've said here that I haven't said to a suicidal friend, in basically the same tone.

I know it does no good, at that moment, to become angry with a clinically depressed person who's out of their mind and talking crazy/suicidal. You want to throw water over them or slap them and snap them out of it, but you can't. At least, in my experience, anger at that moment doesn't work. What you can do is keep them alive, stay with them, distract them, and talk them back to reality. And as soon as they're back, hold up a mirror and show them how scary, stupid and irrational they were being. Make them admit they were being crazy. Make them swear they'll never do it again, even if you don't believe them. And of course, tell them why it scared you, and why it was a place they need to learn to stay away from in their own mind. Warn them when you see them changing that way again. Remind them of the last time. Sanity a muscle. Anyone can learn how to exercise it.

The secret to being sane is just don't go there. Take the option off the table, and start dealing with the world around you, and fixing the way you look at it, until you make it a tolerable place to be. Lower your expectations until you're happy just to wake up in the morning. Horrible? Yeah, but there's no rational alternative.

This isn't me "disrupting", it's not an excuse. It's an alternative way of dealing with the subject. I realize it probably sounds barbaric and medieval, but it's just practical. This is just the only way I've found to deal with clinically depressed people on a long-running basis, and the wall I've built to try and keep people I love -- and myself -- sane, alive, and improving.

Also, remember that it's not all about you. Your anger toward somebody else's actions does not grant you any right to judge.

Depression is intense pain. People usually kill themselves intentionally when this pain becomes unbearable.