<story><title>Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself</title><url>http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/10/20/being-suicidal-what-it-feels-like-to-want-to-kill-yourself/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rdtsc</author><text>&amp;#62; but from my current perspective they seem corrupted and perverse.&lt;p&gt;Thank you for sharing. I was wondering would it make a difference at all if someone else, (a friend, therapist, partner) would say how the current perspective is corrupted or warped. Would that make a difference? Would it help in that situation? If not, what does help, if anything to get out of that mode?</text></item><item><author>kstenerud</author><text>Speaking as someone who has been suicidal and very nearly succeeded had someone not pulled me down, this article pretty much nails it.&lt;p&gt;The strange part is, I can kind of get into my past self&apos;s head and replay all of my reasons, but from my current perspective they seem corrupted and perverse. I know that I was trying to escape from my own twisted feelings of guilt, but the whole episode seems almost surreal now; me yet not me.&lt;p&gt;Another interesting thing that I&apos;d never considered before is that I have a very high pain tolerance and fearlessness. I&apos;ve always suspected that my grandfather, whom I take after quite a bit in this respect, decided to stop taking his medication after my grandmother died.</text></item><item><author>darius42</author><text>Speaking as someone who has been suicidal, I think that that article is a lot of hot air.&lt;p&gt;This is what it felt like to be suicidal: Imagine the worst heartbreak you have ever felt, and multiply this by ten. Imagine the worst anxiety you have ever suffered and multiply this by ten. Imagine that every second feels like a minute, in each of those minute-long-seconds, you feel like a lion is just about to jump out from around the corner and rip you apart slowly. Imagine that everything you used to enjoy is meaningless and nothing at all is fun or enjoyable. Imagine that both your parents just died in a horrible car crash right after disinheriting you because they felt you were a terrible disgrace. Imagine that you constantly obsess on what it was you did so wrong, and what you might have done differently. Imagine repeatedly reliving every word you can remember saying to them with a terrible and critical eye, and repeating to yourself every harsh word they ever said to you. Imagine that you can&apos;t think of anything else at all no matter how hard you try, and these obsessive thoughts just spin in your head over and over and over and over and over and over again with no relief. Imagine that all these feelings just go on and on and on and on and on and on, for hours, days, weeks, months, with no relief. Unrelenting torment and misery with no escape, no out, no one who can understand you, no one who can calm you, no one who can make anything the slightest bit better.&lt;p&gt;Imagine that the only reason that you didn&apos;t kill yourself in order to end this interminable torment is because you figured you&apos;d fuck even that up and just end up a quadriplegic, and then be truly screwed, since you&apos;d never be able to end your eternal misery then.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kstenerud</author><text>I&apos;ve thought about this a lot, but I haven&apos;t found any sure-fire way to pierce through the depressed mentality.&lt;p&gt;In the depressed mentality, you are 100% sure of your convictions. That&apos;s why you know that life isn&apos;t worth living. Anyone telling you things counter to your ideas is either lying or deluded or just plain naive. SSRIs are nothing more than &quot;happy pills&quot; that cloud your judgment and turn you into a stranger to yourself; basically lies in pill form.&lt;p&gt;Depression in full flower is an air-tight system that allows nothing contrary in, roughly equivalent to being in a cult, so cracking through the armor is difficult, indeed! The only way I can think of that could work (other than the person figuring it out for themselves) is to (a) be known and respected by them, (b) have experience with severe depression yourself so that they know you&apos;ve been there, and (c) keep gently pushing them forward after the initial bluntness. Just getting a depressed person to see a shrink would be a huge accomplishment. Getting them to stay on SSRIs is another huge accomplishment (I haven&apos;t helped anyone with the first, but I have kept a friend going with the second).&lt;p&gt;For me personally, I keep mental snapshots of my baseline emotional state so that I have something to compare against. It&apos;s a kind of early warning system for when I&apos;m falling so I can catch myself. Just realizing that my current sadness is of a purely chemical cause helps me get out of it sooner (within hours rather than days or even weeks). There are, of course, times of honest, real sadness, like anyone else gets, but they have a different feel. I can&apos;t explain the difference, but I can recognize it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself</title><url>http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/10/20/being-suicidal-what-it-feels-like-to-want-to-kill-yourself/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rdtsc</author><text>&amp;#62; but from my current perspective they seem corrupted and perverse.&lt;p&gt;Thank you for sharing. I was wondering would it make a difference at all if someone else, (a friend, therapist, partner) would say how the current perspective is corrupted or warped. Would that make a difference? Would it help in that situation? If not, what does help, if anything to get out of that mode?</text></item><item><author>kstenerud</author><text>Speaking as someone who has been suicidal and very nearly succeeded had someone not pulled me down, this article pretty much nails it.&lt;p&gt;The strange part is, I can kind of get into my past self&apos;s head and replay all of my reasons, but from my current perspective they seem corrupted and perverse. I know that I was trying to escape from my own twisted feelings of guilt, but the whole episode seems almost surreal now; me yet not me.&lt;p&gt;Another interesting thing that I&apos;d never considered before is that I have a very high pain tolerance and fearlessness. I&apos;ve always suspected that my grandfather, whom I take after quite a bit in this respect, decided to stop taking his medication after my grandmother died.</text></item><item><author>darius42</author><text>Speaking as someone who has been suicidal, I think that that article is a lot of hot air.&lt;p&gt;This is what it felt like to be suicidal: Imagine the worst heartbreak you have ever felt, and multiply this by ten. Imagine the worst anxiety you have ever suffered and multiply this by ten. Imagine that every second feels like a minute, in each of those minute-long-seconds, you feel like a lion is just about to jump out from around the corner and rip you apart slowly. Imagine that everything you used to enjoy is meaningless and nothing at all is fun or enjoyable. Imagine that both your parents just died in a horrible car crash right after disinheriting you because they felt you were a terrible disgrace. Imagine that you constantly obsess on what it was you did so wrong, and what you might have done differently. Imagine repeatedly reliving every word you can remember saying to them with a terrible and critical eye, and repeating to yourself every harsh word they ever said to you. Imagine that you can&apos;t think of anything else at all no matter how hard you try, and these obsessive thoughts just spin in your head over and over and over and over and over and over again with no relief. Imagine that all these feelings just go on and on and on and on and on and on, for hours, days, weeks, months, with no relief. Unrelenting torment and misery with no escape, no out, no one who can understand you, no one who can calm you, no one who can make anything the slightest bit better.&lt;p&gt;Imagine that the only reason that you didn&apos;t kill yourself in order to end this interminable torment is because you figured you&apos;d fuck even that up and just end up a quadriplegic, and then be truly screwed, since you&apos;d never be able to end your eternal misery then.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pprd</author><text>I have &quot;pain is temporary&quot; tattooed on my inner thigh to serve exactly this purpose. Unfortunately, when you&apos;re depressed the tattoo seems stupid.&lt;p&gt;PS: This might be because it&apos;s a stupid tattoo to begin with.</text></comment>