Hopeworks Community

1. Tell someone.  Find somebody that you think you can trust.  Isolation kills.  Tell someone.
2. Get professional help.  Suicidal thoughts are a sure sign that you need professional help.  And you can be helped.
3. Know that you can get through this.  Promise yourself you will hold on a little longer.  Another minute, another hour, another day---- however long it takes -- hang on.
4. Recognize symptoms for what they are.  Feelings are not facts.  Know they are expressions of your disorder and do not need to be taken as anything else other than that.
5. Write down your thoughts.  It really helps.  Somehow it gives you some distance and perspective and gives you the ability to see things with a perspective you might not not otherwise be able to find.
6. Connect socially with other people.  Do not stay alone.
7. Avoid drugs and alcohol.  You don't need to be more impulsive.
8. Keep yourself safe.  Stay away from lethal things.
9. Give yourself time to get better.  This too will pass.  Give it time.
10.  Go to the hospital when you need to . 

To help someone else:

1. Take the person seriously.
2. Express understanding and concern.
3. Involve other people.  Don't try to do it all yourself.
4. Describe specific behaviors and events that worry you.
5. Stress that the person's life is important.
6. Never promise confidentiality.
7. Don't leave the person alone.

These are just a few things that might help.  Read further.  Learn more.  Stay safe and keep those around you safe.

Below are a series of articles that we have written on the subject of suicide.  They cover a variety of topics, but hopefully provide some help to people who would like to learn more on this topic.

On Suicide and Second Thoughts



Since it began about 1300 people have committed suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge. Roughly 300-400 people have jumped off the bridge and lived. These people have much to teach us about the issue of suicide.

A psychologist in the San Francisco area did a study of the survivors. The most important question that he asked them was, “What were you thinking on the way down?” Their answers were surprisingly uniform. “What a stupid thing to do….I want to live…..I shouldn’t have done this……Help….” There is no reason to believe that the 1300 that died didn’t have the same thoughts before they died. This data provides important clues to suicide prevention and challenges one of the most entrenched stereotypes we have about suicidal people.

We tell ourselves that once people decide to commit suicide that there is nothing we can do to change their mind, that it is “their choice and they are going to do what they want to do.” What this data shows is that even to the point of the act itself people remain ambivalent about taking their own life. No one in the San Francisco study seemed broken hearted about living and once they got past that particular crisis very few of them attempted suicide again.

Nobody wants suicide to be the final answer for them. Even those who believe it is wish it wasn’t. One of the most important things you can do it to give people a chance to change their mind. They may be in such a position that without your help they are unable to even think about changing their mind.

What can you do to help give people that chance?

1. Know when they are in danger. There are many signals that indicate possible problems. All the signals indicate one thing: the person no longer sees suicide as a problem. They see it as a solution. Educate yourself about warning signals. If you care about people care enough to know if they are in trouble.
2. If you see signs that worry you ASK THEM. There may be no more important thing you can do. Contrary to popular myth it will not put an idea in their head that is not already there. It will give them permission to talk when they may feel like they can’t or there is no one to talk to. It tells them that someone else is aware of how they feel when they may think no one understands. It gives them a chance to bring out their ambivalence (You can’t think about why you want to die, without thinking about why you don’t). And finally it may tell someone who has lost the ability to believe in options that there are still options out there. Anything you do that slows down the process is a positive.
3. If you are worried about someone do what you can do to make sure they don’t drink or drug while they are in a crisis state. Substance abuse increases impulsivity. Not surprisingly substance abusers are a high risk group to commit suicide. People do things all the time under the influence that they would probably never do if straight. I have one friend who survived putting a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. Once he decided to kill himself he went out and got drunk on purpose. He didn’t think he could pull the trigger in his “right” mind. Anything that increases impulsivity increases the likelihood of a suicide attempt for someone who is desperate and sees no other way to turn.
4. Do not make it easy for someone. Some means of killing yourself do not allow for second thoughts. You cannot unpull the trigger of a gun. There are many documented cases of people who have taken pills getting scared and calling for help. There are cases of people who cut their wrists calling for help. No one who shoots themselves calls for help. Do not take away someone’s last chance to change their mind. If you are afraid of what someone might do, don’t make it easy for them to get hold of a gun. Guns in the hands of at risk people make suicide more likely. They have a curious appeal. Shooting yourself means you don’t have to worry about what it feels like to die. It means you don’t have to worry about not “having enough guts to do it.” To a degree even movies make shooting yourself seem more dramatic and satisfying. An amazing amount of suicides in movies are shootings and are made to seem at times a heroic act in an awful world. Pills have other uses. Knives have other uses. Guns don’t. They say loudly, “Shoot!”

People do change their minds. Never underestimate the effect of giving them the chance to do so. I used to work for the crisis response team in a mental health center. I had a man come up to me one day in Walmart and shake my hand and say, “Thank you.” He saw immediately that I didn’t recognize him and said, “Lawrenceburg—about 6 months ago.” I knew who he was. I had seen him in a hospital emergency room. He had been brought there by the police after a suicidal gesture. He got down on his hands and knees and begged me not to put him in the hospital. I did anyway. He told me that day in Walmart, “You saved my life. If you had let me go that night I had the pills to kill myself and was ready. I made it through treatment. I have stopped using drugs. My wife has come back. I have a job. I have a life. Thank you—you saved my life.”

People kill themselves in the end because they think, in some way, it is the only answer to some type or types of problems they can’t live with anymore. No one wants to believe it is the only answer. Help give them a chance to change their mind.

On Suicide



About 11 of every 100,000 people commit suicide. For every 100,000 people with bipolar disorder 20,000 will commit suicide. It is the leading cause of death for people with bipolar.

To the average person few things make less sense than how the idea of suicide can come to make perfect sense to anyone. Few things are scarier. Few things are harder to talk about. Few things are harder to listen to someone talk about.

I asked a man in a support group what it felt like to be suicidal. He said, “You don’t understand. It’s not about wanting to die. It’s just about wanting the pain to go away.” His words offer an important clue. The attraction of suicide lies not in the problems it causes, but the problems we believe it solves. It is most compelling when we believe there is no other solution. The process of coming to believe in the solution is the process of becoming suicidal.

To become less suicidal is to come to doubt the wisdom of the solution it represents. This is why it is important to talk to people you believe are in danger. Feeling isolated and alone and feeling like no one wants to listen to what you are feeling or thinking accelerates the process of becoming suicidal. Connection with others is one of the greatest antidotes to suicidal behavior there is. If you think someone is suicidal ask them. Don’t wait for their behavior to answer the question for you.

We have an almost infinite ability to make the things we feel like doing make sense no matter how silly, stupid, or dangerous they may be. One of the things that is true of people with mood disorders is that their disorder is constantly pushing them to act, to rush to judgment. The impulse to suicide for the bipolar person is a rush to judgment. Mood urges us on to action and tries to short circuit any attempt to check our impulses out. We don’t have our feelings. They have us. Perspective is replaced with blind certainty. Blind certainty leads to tragedy.

In our first support group we talked about suicide. Virtually every person in the room had attempted suicide at least once. One lady had made 13 attempts in the last 2 years. Yet each one of them wanted to live. They were scared to death of themselves. They knew what it was like to feel like they were at the end of their rope and they feared what they would do passionately if they reached that space again. They knew that their disorder all too often isolated them from human connection and that connection was their best hope when they were doing poorly.

Ambivalence is the enemy of suicide. A study of people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and lived asked them one simple question. “What did you think on the way down?” Virtually all of them said, “What a stupid idea. I want to live. Why did I ever do this?” If the people who survived thought this is there any reason to believe that the people who died felt any different? Second thoughts don’t matter though when you shoot yourself. They normally don’t matter when you jump from a high place. People who cut themselves though or use poison are known though for calling for help. If you find a way to postpone action more often than not ambivalence wins. Make second thoughts count.

Suicide is the most preventable form of death there is . Linda and I got trained today in something called QPR. It is a series of suicide prevention techniques simple enough for ordinary people to use which can help get someone past the suicidal crisis and enable them to get the help they need. It is not therapy or counseling. It is probably closer to the mental health equivalent of CPR. The letters stand for “question, persuade, and refer”. QPR was developed by a clinical psychologist in Seattle and is taught nationwide. Our hope is to train as many people as we can in the next months. Anyone interested can contact us for further information.

My sister in law killed herself about 8 years ago. She was probably bipolar although no one formally ever diagnosed her so as far as I know. She struggled for years with problems that always seemed overwhelming. One night while sitting around with her family watching a movie she went into the bathroom. In the bathroom she took as many pills as she could. She came out and watched the movie for a few more minutes and then told her family what she did. They rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. It took about 2 days for her organs to shut down and when they turned the respirator off she died. 8 years later her children and husband are still suffering. The end is not so final for them.

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts reach out to someone. If you know someone in trouble reach out to them. Suicide doesn’t have to happen. That is one of the big messages of QPR. We can make a difference. Someone once told me he knew God was a God of miracles because he gave us each other to lean on. Be a miracle today.