How To Tell If A Loved One Is Thinking Of Suicide

The desire to die is linked to difficulties and dissatisfaction with one’s life. Those who want to die can manifest this desire with phrases such as: “Life is not worth living”, “What I want is to end it”, “If I have to live like this, I prefer to die”.

The Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) has published the most negative data known so far. Over the past seven years, the leading cause of death in Spain has been suicide. The data is worrying because it is the highest rate in recent years and because the tendency to suicide is increasingly widespread.

3180 people committed suicide in 2011, 22 more than in 2010. Nine people a day decide to end their lives. In countries where the unemployment rate is rising, the number of suicides is increasing, especially among men. Faced with these disconcerting data, a question naturally arises:

What makes certain people stronger and able to cope with the difficulties they encounter on the path of life? What is it that prevents a person from seeing another way out of a complicated situation other than ending their life?

The truth is, people attempt suicide for several reasons. Some really want to die, some maybe not. However, if we were to find a common factor, it would be depression: most people who commit suicide or attempt suicide are depressed. More than 90% of suicides are linked to an emotional disorder or other mental illness.

Not all people who commit suicide are depressed, nor do all depressed people decide to end their life. There are other factors that can influence the decision not to continue living, such as the sense of guilt that does not allow the person in question to accept and forgive himself. Furthermore, it seems that in recent times the economic crisis, unemployment, the loss of one’s social status are valid reasons that lead people to consider suicide.

Whatever the cause of suicide attempts, the fact remains that the desire to die can be interpreted as a request for help or a way of punishing people with whom one is not on good terms or a way to find control of a person. situation that at that moment is getting out of hand.

What the suicide does not know is that in reality he does not want to die as much as he wants to get out of the complicated situation he is facing and truly believes that death is the only possible way out. Suicide, many times, is an impulsive act, triggered by an increase in anxiety and despair that the person may not feel at a certain time after a stressful situation. Studies on the subject conducted over the past 20 years reveal that unbearable anxiety is one of the main short-term risks for depressed people to try to take their own lives.

What are the warning signs that a loved one is thinking about suicide?

1. Talk about suicide or death in general.
2. He talks about “leaving”, about “taking a long journey”.
3. He says he will “no longer need certain things” and gives what he has to others.
4. Expresses feelings such as hopelessness or guilt.
5. He doesn’t feel like going out or dealing with family or friends.
6. Stop participating in activities or pursuing his interests.
7. Change your eating habits or sleep-wake patterns.
8. Demonstrates self-destructive behaviors (drinks alcohol, uses drugs, or is self-harming).

The person who wants to commit suicide is someone who has lost hope of reaching their goal, feels guilty and cannot forgive themselves or others. For this reason, if you have ever experienced the desire to die, know that not all people are overwhelmed by emotions or complicated situations.

Most, in fact, overcome them and are able to look at problems from different points of view so that they can find the best way to move forward, with hope and will. Perhaps the two words that can help minimize this desire for suicide, to the point of making it disappear from thoughts, are “hope” and forgiveness “.

Hope that no situation, however complicated and difficult, is eternal. There are times when it is really difficult to move forward, but with a little hope and determination, you can change the negative cycle of events. Change your negative outlook and you can begin the journey towards your goals.

Learn to forgive after taking harm or receiving an offense that you have not been able to deal with. It is normal for this to cause internal tensions which then result in depression or anxiety.

To keep someone or something from harming you again, you lock yourself in a shell, developing negative feelings of hatred and resentment. The idea of ​​suicide is tempting if you think about the feelings of guilt that people who do or have done harm have. But you cannot even imagine the unbearable pain that you will cause to fall on your family and loved ones who will continue to wonder why your gesture or if they could have done something to prevent you from doing it. These thoughts would haunt them for life.