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Re: what keeps you going? **suicide trigger

Posted by caraher on January 25, 2007, at 18:25:12

In reply to Re: what keeps you going? **suicide trigger, posted by mair on January 25, 2007, at 16:55:40

Inertia.

I think people experience suicidal thoughts and urges in different ways, and for me it's always taken the form of an impulse to suddenly do something potentially fatal. I've never done any huge amount of planning, it's more been a matter of resisting urges. So it's not a matter of there being a thing that "keeps me going" so much as just always reminding myself that following a momentary urge might be an irreversible decision. My natural caution then kicks in.

The points about "failed" suicide attempts are important. There are few "sure things" in life, and suicide is among them. Several years ago a conference on depression on college campuses occurred at my university, and I was a panelist for one session (I'd been in a video where they spoke to people with depression as an interviewee.) Afterward we were speaking with other attendees and one was a young woman, about age 25, in a wheelchair. After a while she volunteered the information that she was in the wheelchair because of a failed suicide attempt, and without giving the details I'll say I thought her method sounded awfully likely to work.

This really had a huge impact on me. It was so heartbreaking - I wish I could roll back time and stop her. She was so intelligent and pretty and likable, and the wheelchair served as a constant visual reminder of the horrible burden she must have felt when she made the decision that led to her paralysis.

WS, I'm sorry I don't know all your details... but I know you're so young that there's every reason to expect life to get better for you. And you have so much to build on. You're intelligent and, as far as I know, healthy (apart from this bout of shingles; I mostly mean I'm unaware of long-term chronic illness). You remind me of the young woman in the wheelchair, except that you're on the other side of the moment you might regret forever.


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