What Are Suicidal Thoughts?

Suicidal thoughts can happen when someone’s feelings of hopelessness, isolation, or despair become too heavy to bear. Suicidal thoughts can affect anyone of any age. It is like a mental disease and people who choose to commit suicide feel that there is no other option. Often, suicide is the result of untreated mental health disease. Suicide also takes 800,000 lives a year and leaves the families of the victims in pain. When someone takes their own life they affect everyone close to them and often leave people confused.  

Statistics

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and takes over 47,000 lives a year. In 2017 in the United States, 47,173 people committed suicide. That means 14 in 100,000 people committed suicide. However, there were 1,400,000 suicide attempts. Those deaths cost the United States 69 billion dollars in suicide and self-injury cost. 

Ways to Prevent Suicide

The best way to prevent suicide is to look for warning signs from your friends or family and know what to do when you see them. However, some people will show no signs. That’s why it is very important to always talk or check up on people who are close to you. Almost every person who committed suicide gave some kind of warning or clue before attempting to. The most common warning signs are the person talking about hurting or killing himself and buying drugs are harmful weapons that can be used to commit suicide. Also, another sign is mood change or a change in someone’s personality. Suicidal people often feel hopeless which will cause a change in personality and mood.

Talking About Suicide

Talking to someone about suicide who is suicidal could possibly save their life. The Mayo Clinic Staff said, “You may not be sure what to do to help, whether you should take talk of suicide seriously, or if your intervention might make the situation worse. Taking action is always the best choice.”  Some things you could say to get the conservation started are things like: “I’m starting to get worried about you,’’ or, “I wanted to check in on you because you haven’t seemed yourself lately.” Talking about suicide is very important and needs to be learned in school. People who seem the happiest could be the suicidal ones. Some suicidal people use joking and laughing to hide from depression and suicidal thoughts.

Who Can You Get Help From?

It is very hard to try to manage suicidal thoughts and depression on your own. People who are suicidal are often too scared to talk to someone or they feel uncomfortable talking about it. That’s why it’s very important to look for signs and to check up on your close ones. If you are going through depression or having suicidal thoughts you need to get professional help. There are many people and places you can get help from. The easiest would be telling a loved one or an adult. There are also many programs you can join or you can try counseling.

For more help, visit: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  or https://afsp.org/