Are there any painless suicide methods?

Most people find SF when the pain is so bad that they can’t take it any more. That is how I found SF. If you are here, reading this, the chances are you are so tired of hurting, so exhausted by the relentless black hole of pain inside you that you are looking for a way, ANY way, to make it stop. Painless suicide methods seem like the holy grail right now. I get it – believe me – I understand.

Are There Any Painless Suicide Methods?

The simple answer is no. I understand that your instinct now is to click off this page and keep looking, but STOP. Wait. Just stay a few minutes. The problem with suicide methods is that up to 97% of the time, they fail. And that is just the completely committed “I want to die right now this second” group. Suicide is painful and messy and horrifying – and I completely understand if you are sitting here thinking “yes, well so is my life” – I have been there.

One of the most common things our members say when they first join SF is ‘I am too much of a coward to go through with it”. Not killing yourself isn’t cowardly. Not killing yourself isn’t weak or spineless. It is okay to scream for help at the top of your lungs right now – you deserve help and nobody can do this alone.

We have thousands and thousands of members and each and every one of them knows what it feels like to want to fall asleep and never wake up. To stop the pain – for it to be easy and peaceful and painless. Suicide isn’t any of those things. It is painful and lonely and scary. The thoughts and feelings you are dealing with are not shameful or weak or wrong – but really wanting to die and really wanting to make the pain stop are not the same thing. 

What About Pain Free Death?

It is easy to believe – especially right now – that it wouldn’t matter if you died. Nobody would care. I don’t know you and I don’t know what is going on in your life (I would like to) but I have been suicidal and believed those things, and I have talked to hundreds and hundreds of people who also believe those things. Pain lies. Depression lies. Most of all, despair lies. The idea that your death would not matter and it wouldn’t hurt anyone – that your suicide would be pain free for all concerned – it isn’t true. Maybe you want to believe it is true because you don’t want to hurt any of the people you love. Maybe you hurt so badly you can’t see past the pain to the truth. But you are wrong. There are no ‘pain free’ ways to die. There are especially no pain free ways to kill yourself. Not just the physical messy agony of suicide itself, which is never like it is in the movies, but also the emotional pain you are passing to the people who are about you and even the people who ‘only’ know you.

The pain can go away. I know you don’t believe me; I didn’t believe it either. I was sure – 100% definite – that life would never get better, that the pain would never go away, that I would never feel okay again, let alone happy. I felt alone and isolated and like there was nobody to talk to who could possibly understand. I was wrong. About all of it. There are people who understand and who will support you and while right now you don’t think support can help and you don’t see how talking can make a difference, there is something about NOT feeling alone and isolated that eases the pain just enough to be able to breathe for a minute. To be able to think. To give yourself a chance.

You Need to Talk to Someone

There is no replacement for professional medical treatment. If you are suicidal then you need real medical help – but you also need to talk to people you can be honest with, people you can say out loud “I hurt so much I want to die” to. It is hard, almost impossible, to say those things to people who know and care about you in real life. They get scared and hurt and suddenly you are not only dealing with your own pain, you are dealing with theirs as well. For people who already have more pain than they can bear, that is not an option.

Talking doesn’t magically make the pain go away. I am not going to sit here and lie to you that it might. I understand that it is hard to see the point – the POINT is that you want to make the pain stop and if talking won’t do that then it can feel like a waste of the precious little energy you have left. What talking does – in a peer to peer setting – is make you feel less alone. Knowing that people understand and care, that even strangers who are in pain themselves care about you enough to listen and support you, can make you feel less isolated, remind you that you do not have to deal with this alone. 

Talk to us. Write down how you feel. Engage with people who understand – as much as anyone can understand – how you feel. The pain won’t go away overnight but it CAN go away and you deserve to have support while you deal with it. So instead of clicking off here and going back to Google in search of ways to die, stick around here. Join our community and find ways to make the pain go away that don’t involve killing yourself – ways to make the pain go away that give you your life back. 

Do you feel like you really just hate yourself? Check this out. 

Having a hard time thinking about getting from today until tomorrow? Try this one. 

Can Loneliness Really Kill You?

Research is reported to show that people who have no social supports and who feel alone have as greater increased risk of early death as alcoholic, while  succeeding in making friends can be as good for our health as giving up smoking. Spending too much time alone, particularly if that time is not filled with rewarding distractions, often leads to fatalistic thinking and philosophizing that, in turn, lead to damaging thought patterns. In addition to this, a lack of accountability to people who care about you and your welfare can mean that self destructive urges that are usually curbed by fear of worrying or upsetting loved ones can get completely out of control.

According to a study by Brigham Young University, the subjective feeling of loneliness – that is to say feeling alone whether or not you are, in fact, alone – can increase the chance of death by 26%. It is not just being alone that is a significant risk to ongoing good health; just feeling uncared for, unheard and unsupported can be almost as dangerous as actually being isolated.

Loneliness and  Mental Health

Loneliness is a key theme on our forums – people who feel alone find it harder to combat suicidal urges and deal with mental illness. The mental health charity Mind report that being lonely can add to mental health issues such as depression, loneliness and anxiety. It also suggests that loneliness can contribute to rarer mental health conditions such as schizophrenia.

Loneliness can have a significant impact on our mental health – The University Herald reported that a study by the University of Chicago found loneliness to be linked to disrupted sleep, increases in the stress hormone cortisol and an overall perceived lowering in general well-being. That loneliness can contribute to poor mental health is well documented, but it is important not to ignore the other side of the coin: that poor mental health can be the cause of increased loneliness and isolation, both subjectively and actually.

One of the key symptoms of clinical depression is a feeling of loneliness and sadness. Often this feeling is not objectively true, but depression does not often care for the facts. On top of this already heightened sense of isolation, depression also has the effect of reducing our interest in socializing and participating in activities we once found enjoyable. By withdrawing from these activities, spending less time in social situations, people suffering from mental health conditions often isolate themselves.

As depression, anxiety and eventually suicidal thoughts and impulses take hold of our life, we find it harder to talk to people and engage in negative thought patterns such as:

• My mental health is my problem; people shouldn’t have to deal with my ‘craziness’
• People don’t like me anyway; I should stay on my own so I am not rejected.
• I hurt everyone who cares about me; it is better for everyone if I am alone.
• Even if I go out and socialize I won’t have fun; there isn’t any point in trying.

If any of these thoughts sound familiar – it is likely that your mental health problems are making your feeling of loneliness worse. Tempting as it is to isolate ourselves, telling ourselves that it is saving us from pain in the long run, the truth is that we are creating our own pain through our actions. Knowing this is the first step to fighting this life threatening problem.

Practical Steps for Easing Loneliness

Loneliness, left alone, will only ever get worse. It is not something that will fix itself and not something that gets better without attention and effort. Unfortunately, new friends are unlikely to simply knock on the door.

There are lots of ways that people will suggest you ‘find new friends’ – most of them involve joining a club or group to find like-minded people. This is an excellent idea but the simple fact is that if you were in a place where you felt able to go and join a group of strangers, the chances are that you would not have stopped seeing your own friends and family in the first place. Sites like Meetup.com are an excellent resource for finding friendship and getting out of the house, but they are not necessarily the best ‘first step’ on the road to re-socializing.

The UK National Health Service recommends that people suffering from loneliness ‘learn to love computers’. It is indisputable that the internet makes connecting with people easier and less stressful for many people with social anxiety issues and who need to be able to speak to people on their own terms. Online communities can be an excellent place to start to build up broken down social confidence – on forums and in chat rooms, talking to people without normal social pressures. It is, however, important to remember that these communities are not a replacement for ‘real life’ social interaction. As a starting place they are excellent, but they should be a supplement to other social interaction.

Once your confidence has been rebuilt to some level you can try:

• Finding clubs and groups online – sites like Meetup offer groups with no obligation.
• Joining a church, if you are religiously inclined
• Taking a night class or day college course – most colleges offer short courses that can last as little as one day in all sorts of areas.
• Re-connect with old friends – often a simple apology for having dropped off the face of the planet for a while and an invitation to coffee is enough to start to rebuild a friendship.
• Volunteer for a charity or non-profit – having structure and a shared goal/purpose makes it easier to build friendships and eases social pressure.

Everything Starts with Starting

Making a beginning is the hardest part – but it is also the most important. Nothing changes unless something changes. Doing the brave thing today can make all the difference to your tomorrows. Here at SF we understand the difficulties that loneliness brings and we understand how hard it can be to start.

Everyone has felt depressed from time to time, and often this feeling passes in a matter of days or even hours for most people. Suffering from long term depression, however, can be scary, exhausting and debilitating. Depression is a medical condition that needs medical attention, whether you think you are depressed “because your life sucks” or whether you have no idea why you are depressed because your life is generally good. If you are suffering from depression, do not suffer alone. Your doctor can help you and here at SF we can listen and support you through this difficult time.

So, What is Depression?

Depression is a mood disorder which causes the sufferer to feel low in mood for a prolonged period of time, and is more than just feeling a bit sad or upset for a few days. Depression can disrupt your thought process and can be severely debilitating as it can affect different areas of your life in negative ways. It tends to manifest itself with you feeling low in mood, having periods of tearfulness, persistent negative thoughts about yourself and the world around you and you may even have thoughts of suicide and wanting to hurt yourself. Depression can also be a symptom of a more severe mental health disorder, so it is important to seek help straight away.

Signs and Symptoms of Depression

There are many different signs and symptoms of depression. Depression affects everybody differently, so you may find symptoms from person to person vary. The most common symptoms are:

• • Feelings of persistent sadness that does not go away
  • Feeling hopeless
  • Feeling worthless
  • Becoming more tearful than usual
  • Sleeping too much or too little
  • Comfort eating or completely losing your appetite
  • Losing confidence in yourself
  • Low self-esteem
  • Feeling anxious
  • Not being able to concentrate properly
  • Isolating yourself from your friends and family
  • Feeling more tired and lethargic than usual
  • Unexplained aches and pains
  • Feelings of guilt
  • Loss of sex drive
  • Losing interest in things you used to enjoy
  • Self harm
  • Thoughts of wanting to end your life

If you are in crisis, have immediate plans to end your own life or have harmed yourself then please seek medical attention urgently by either calling the emergency services, calling a crisis line or going to the Emergency Department.

Treatment for Depression

Depression is a very treatable illness and recovery is very achievable with the right help and treatment. To seek help for your depression, you must first see your GP or family doctor so they can diagnose you with depression. Only a doctor can diagnose depression and help you work out which treatment plan is right for you. They may also want to run some blood tests to ensure that there are no physical illnesses causing your depression. Your doctor may suggest starting you on medication to treat your depression, such as anti-depressants, or they may suggest that you need a course of therapy, or a combination of both. Research suggests that recovery success rates in people with depression are much higher in people who receive a combination of therapy and medication.

Your doctor will want to monitor your depression closely so you will need to see your doctor regularly, especially if you need to take medication. In more complex cases where depression isn’t responding to treatment, your doctor may suggest that you are seen by a psychiatrist. This is nothing to be scared of or worried about. A psychiatrist is a specialist in mental health, and will ensure that you are receiving the right treatment and will monitor you closely.

Tips for Seeking Help With Depression

It is very scary when you are talking to the doctor for the first time. It can feel intimidating and can put you off going to see them. Here a few tips to help you talk to your doctor:

Write down everything you would like to say to the doctor. This is helpful because you may feel too anxious to talk when you get there, so if you can’t talk or forget something, this can be very helpful for both you and your doctor.

Take somebody with you. This may not be applicable in all cases, but taking somebody who knows you well and trusts you can help. Their presence may help you feel more at ease, they can be a great source of support and they may be able to talk to the doctor about how they feel the depression is affecting you (the doctor will ask for your permission to speak to them and they will do this with you present).

Be honest. Being honest is the best way to getting the correct help and treatment. If you only tell the doctor half the story, then they will not get the full picture and despite their qualifications, doctors are not mind readers. Doctors can only act based on what you tell them. If you went to the doctor after suffering from a broken leg and the pain was unbearable, and you tell them the pain is only mild then the doctor will not give you the appropriate analgesia because you told them your pain was mild. The same applies with depression.

Depression Links and Resources

Here a few links and resources that you may find useful and helpful. If you come across any others that are not here and you think it will be beneficial to other members, then please post them in this thread and we will add them into this post.

http://www.mind.org.uk/information-…gclid=CLvfxvOhx8UCFYvpwgodV74AsA#.VVe-helFBMs

http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-resources

http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/depression

Depression Self Help

http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/depression.asp

http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/depression.htm

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/dealing-with-depression.htm

Get Help on the Forum and in Chat – Share Your Experiences!

Please use the forum and chat to other members about your experiences with depression. It helps to talk to people who have experienced depression who will understand what you are going through. Sharing experiences, hints and tips are useful to other members, and be sure to post if are you are looking for support, help and advice.

Talking can allow valuable input from others on how to deal with situations. It allows the person talking to get the benefit of both experience and knowledge of others in processing  problems and issues when the listener gives feedback. Even just affirmation that it is a legitimate problem or feeling has value. The sharing of problems very often gives a feeling of having lessened the burden some because once it is shared there is a perception that you are not alone with the issue anymore.

So why is it so hard to talk about problems and feelings? Social pressures and stigmas can make some feel weak or needy if they talk about things. The urge to be self-reliant is very strong in many people and even kindled by cultural expectations. Even if one can overcome the cultural or learned social expectations, there are still ramifications about some issues.

Talking about money problems could lead others to believe the person is not responsible or even untrustworthy. Talking about feelings may make others feel they are over sensitive or “too uptight”. Whether people like to admit it or not, even while they tell people to talk about their problems, when the person does finally open up there are far too often real unintended real world ramifications to the way others see them or feel about them. It only takes a couple episodes of negative responses for a person to decide the risk of talking outweighs the potential benefit.

Where professional counselors and therapists come in is they allow the positive benefits of sharing the problems and feelings without the same potential social risks. Moreover, they are trained in how to guide conversations to be more productive, and to see past smaller issues to the larger underlying issues.

An oversimplified example might be the problem wasn’t the spouse forgot to pick up some grocery items on the way home that caused the person to feel like they are in a doomed relationship, the real problem is they feel like they are never listened to or that the person does not care about their needs or desires in general.

From this point the trained professional might help a person go through a logical list of examples where the spouse has done these things many times or that it is actually infrequent and allow a person to determine if the reaction is justified or not, and in that manner to cope with the feelings better; or the opposite and see the reason the person was so upset about a small thing was it is in fact a small example of a recurring much larger problem, so while the specific thing was small, they were correct in being alarmed overall and not over-reacting.

While having a trained professional is a great support, not all have access to counselors and therapists, and it is not reasonable to be able to get a professional for everything that comes up a person might want to discuss. Many people in the world simply do not have a large enough support network of trustworthy friends or family to listen to them. Some issues also have too high of social risk to for many to feel comfortable talking about to friends or family.

If topics like depression and anxiety carry a high social risk, then how does one discuss self-harm like cutting, or actual suicidal thoughts without feeling like they are seriously risking the relationship and trust of their friends and family? If somebody has suicidal thoughts on a frequent basis or has been suffering from depression for a long period of time they cannot see a professional every time a negative thought enters their mind. Friends and family often have no experience in listening and offering feedback on these issues, so that silence comes across as not caring and may make it feel like sharing was  a mistake.

Use of anonymous peer support groups has been proven very effective for many people in dealing with the harder problems and feelings. Everything from addiction to suicidal thoughts has peer groups that will allow people talk to others that have had similar experiences so are not judgmental, and the anonymous nature relieves the social risk of disclosure. Also peer support groups allow far more frequent help than professional services. They fulfill the vital role of sharing thoughts and feelings while relieving the burden of feeling alone, without social risk to the person that is sharing. It is a chance to talk to people that actually understand the feelings and problems because they have had similar feelings or issues currently or in the past. It allows one to not only have a chance to talk, but to be listened to and understood as well.

Click to talk now – Forums or chat to be heard – Register a 100% anonymous account.