I’ve Spoken to Hundreds of Suicidal People. None of Them Wanted to Die

The one thing that unites the desperate.

People think about suicide all wrong. They think suicidal people are selfish and weak and want to die as the “easy way out.” The reality is suicidality is vastly more complex and individual than that.

This is what makes people so nervous about discussing it. You can’t fit suicidal people into a nice little box and put them out of your mind. You can’t write suicide off as something that’ll never affect you.

Suicide can affect the weak and the strong, the selfish and the considerate. In this article, I want to dive into what suicide is about, why it manifests in someone’s mind, and what we can all do to reduce these tragedies.

The thing that links depression and suicide.

One of the leading causes of suicide is hopelessness. In general, we are resilient people. We can withstand almost any pain provided it’s brief and a clear end is in sight. Life becomes intolerable when you’re in torment and have no hope of ever getting better.

Most people who commit suicide have a mental disorder. Depression is a primary factor. A crucial part of depression is hopelessness, and this is a direct route to suicidal feelings.

An investigation was carried out into 384 people that had attempted suicide. It found that hopelessness was the critical variable linking depression to suicidal behavior. If we can find ways to reduce hopelessness, it may reduce the number of suicides.

Mental health disorders and suicide.

Most suicides are related to mental health problems — the most relevant being depression, substance abuse, and psychosis. The connection could be as high as 90% of cases.

Covid has had a significant impact on people’s mental health. Many people don’t get the treatment they need. According to a study, 42.6% of adults with psychiatric illnesses received care in the past year.

While it’s challenging to reduce suicidal behavior among the mentally ill who are not in treatment, some things can be done to minimize suicides:

• Improve the detection of mental disorders in primary care. Provide education around mental health to people like first responders and school workers to give them a chance to identify people at risk of suicide and direct them toward proper treatment.
• Improve access to mental health care.
• Stigma is a significant factor in why many sufferers don’t seek help. Reduce the stigma through education and awareness. Teach people when to seek help if they see someone with psychiatric disorder symptoms.

The plague of loneliness.

I’ve been plagued by loneliness at various times in my life. It’s terrible to be unable to trust anyone or reach out for help. In a cruel twist, I’ve found that the more depressed and suicidal you get, the more lonely you become because you push everyone away.

There comes a point when you’ve retreated so far into yourself that no one can reach you.

A study looked into loneliness and family support as factors in suicide risk among 456 college students. It found that this support buffers the adverse effects of loneliness on suicide risk.

In my case, love (and many meds) saved my life. The medication allowed me to feel loved again, and my family was there to provide it.

When love breaks down.

When a relationship breaks down, it’s a significant risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts. Numerous studies have shown this risk is elevated in men following divorce. Part of this may be the loss of “honor” some men feel.

Many men have little to no friends outside the marital home. The woman usually keeps the house and the children when they get divorced. Divorce is the main reason for homelessness.

With no friends, no home, children caught up in the mess, and the ending of one of your most significant relationships, it’s not hard to see how people — especially men — start thinking of ways to end their lives.

When your job is your identity.

Financial issues had a substantial contribution to 13% of suicide deaths. Most recession-related suicides had never had contact with psychiatric services.

Suicide rates are higher during a recession, but we know little of the characteristics of these people. Interventions are needed by nonclinical agencies, such as places of work, to prevent these suicides.

Money equals security. It gives people a sense of pride. One of the first things you ask a stranger is, “What do you do?” The answer is always related to work. People work hard so they can provide for their families and live independently.

If you lose your job, you lose all that pride and identity. Due to PTSD, I lost my job as a police officer, and suddenly I was nobody. Everything in my life was geared around being a police officer, and then it was all over. It took me ten years to rebuild my life into something new.

So it’s not “just” about the money. Your identity is at stake.

The danger of self-medicating.

Addiction often plays a crucial role in suicidality—up to 40% of patients seeking treatment report a history of suicide attempts.

The main danger occurs when other risk factors combine. If someone has marital problems, financial stressors, substance abuse, sexual abuse, and a history of suicide attempts, it should cause a significant red flag.

I used to drink to block out my problems. I stopped before reaching full-blown alcoholism, but I was spending way too much on drinking and ended up unconscious in many alleyways, lying in my own vomit with no ability to defend myself if I were robbed or worse.

What started as a way to try and numb my problems became a whole new problem.

What do suicidal people really want?

I started this article by declaring suicidal people rarely “want to die.” If that’s the case, what do they want?

One thing ties all of the precursors to suicide listed above together. They all cause intense psychological pain. Most suicidal people just want the pain to end.

When I used to volunteer on a crisis hotline, I had to ask every caller if they were suicidal, even if their problem sounded trivial. I remember taking a call from a woman who was upset her friend missed her birthday. I almost forgot to ask the question, but she WAS feeling suicidal. I learned that just because something doesn’t affect me doesn’t mean it won’t affect someone else.

If a person was suicidal, I had a follow-up question: "If you could wave a magic wand and take the pain away, would you still want to die?” I took hundreds, possibly thousands of calls, and no one ever said yes.

This makes suicide even more tragic. All those people might have been persuaded to live if their pain had been eased. They didn’t want to die but couldn’t bear the agony of living.

It reminds me of someone who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge and somehow survived. He said that he made himself a promise throughout his journey to the bridge — if one person smiled at him, he wouldn’t go through with the jump.

He got to the bridge and paced up and down for ages, still hoping for that one smile — that human connection. He was crying by now, so maybe someone would ask if he was ok.

Then a woman came up to him smiling. He thought this was it. She looked at the tears rolling down his cheeks and the anguish on his face and said, “Can you take my picture?” The cruelty of the self-serving smile was too much.

He took the photo and jumped.

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