So there's some pretty good reason to believe that suicide is often a very impulsive act and delaying between impulse and action helps you stay alive til that impulse passes ]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/struck-living/201012/can-obstacle-prevent-suicide
Obviously this means its prudent not to have quick successful means, like guns, available. It also means that often trying to just ride out the feelings for a while will mean they decrease. So I figured a thread where people shared their tips on how they outlast their worst moods might be useful.
Full disclosure, I haven't been fully suicidal yet (religious taboos on the subject) but on my really bad wanting to die moments, I'll usually write things out here, explaining how I feel, in some way putting it all in a structure like this and then casting it off of my brain out into the world, so to speak, helps me feel calmer. But I'll try to escape my own story by burying myself in others'. Games, tv shows, daydreams of a different world, that sort of thing. The more I can forget about myself, the easier it usually is to make it til its time to go to sleep, which usually marks the end of my despair as I tend to experience a mood reset after a night's rest. Knowing that that usually happens for me is also helpful.
Hi Northguy.
The one time I was literally close to the edge (I was about a minute away from jumping under a train) because I wanted the experiences that were happening and the emotional pain I was putting myself through to end, it was something my grandmother used to say that stopped me - just this thought that we have no idea what suicide and death really mean. We *think* we do - but none of us knows really. Her other similar comment was that we don't know what's round the corner in this life either, so we might as well hang around to find out. It wasn't because this made sense ... I don't really know why it helped, but it did.
(I believe in an afterlife, which is a slightly different thing.)
After that, I had clinical hypnosis sessions and it's never been quite this bad since.
The one time I was considering suicide, I spun my gun around on the table for a while. Gun or no gun, if I had of really wanted to die I would have found a way. It was the spirit within me that kept me alive, not the fact that I didn't have a gun. I have always owned guns, and I always will.
@turbulence The reason I mention guns is that they are both comparatively speedy and effective. Really anything which fits those criteria works, it doesn’t have to be guns specifically in any way. The speedy bit, is because the longer you have to wait in between “i am going to kill myself” and actually committing the act means more time to reconsider. The effective bit is because if an attempt works, then that’s that, but if an attempt doesn’t work then the person can either try again or go on living. Going on living happens more often than you’d think. But there’s no chance to reconsider if the attempt succeeds, and guns offer rather a high chance of success.
Further info on guns specifically (as opposed to general info on these concepts, which can be viewed on the originally provided source) can be found here for anyone who is interested
I think the dilemma is that a fully suicidal person has convinced himself that having access to an immediate method of dying is morally (or otherwise) justified. He wouldn't be in the state of mind (and hasn't been for a long time) to say "this is objectively wrong." You need to have that kind of clear-headed foresight to be able to get rid of objects that can aid suicide in the first place, but the challenge of mental illness is that this kind of foresight goes out the window.
The scariest part is that I'm able to write this post from a rational position, but the problem still applies to me. If that's not some of the most delusional hypocrisy, I don't know what is.
@BBU I don’t think being able to rationally consider a problem while also suffering from the exact same danger is really a bad thing. I mean its better than the alternative of not even being able ot see the danger. But yes, the idea of trying to take precautions against what your future self might want (at least for a little while) is inherently problematic in some ways.
I am glad to hear things have become better for you since that moment.