Have you considered committing suicide? Do you get this idea often? Do you feel you are alone against a wall and there is no way out?
I don’t know if this will help in any way or not, but you may be surprised to know that almost 4% of population have the same suicidal ideas in their mind from time to time. As everything starts by feeling sad, it would be surprising to know that more than 11% of people have reports of Depression in their life time, MORE THAN ONE IN TEN. Yes, all those happy people you know and you thought all your life that they are so different from you are not so different after all. So there are many people feeling lonely and against the wall with no way out. But how will knowing that help your suicidal thoughts? More importantly, what is the difference between having suicidal thoughts or actually acting upon those thoughts and committing suicide? How do people end up KILLING THEMSELVES?
How may you end up killing yourself? What a horrible question!! But more horrible for those who are parents is the terrible thought that their young child may be thinking of suicide. What are the chances of that? According to the Center for Disease Control, suicide is responsible for almost 4,400 deaths of teens and young people each year in USA. In other words, suicide ranks number 3 when it comes to what causes the most deaths in young people. One out of each one hundred suicide attempts end up with death. About HALF A MILLION PEOPLE COMMIT SUICIDE each year in USA and other countries are not so far behind in statistics. If you had suicidal thoughts and even a plan to kill yourself, then all of a sudden you became aware of your child’s plan for suicide, what would you do? What a terrible dilemma? Would you try your best to help them come out of their CRISIS? What is the basis of all these CRISIS INTERVENTION programs? Do they really work?
The fact is that over years of observation and intervention it is proven that if one is helped during their peak of depression with suicidal thoughts, their chance of committing suicide comes down a lot. It is exactly like the movies when someone pulls the actor down from the edge of balcony and saves their life. Crisis control is the act of helping someone at their worst and deepest point of depression when they plan to end their life and staying with them until the suicidal thoughts passes. The miracle is that although nothing in their life changes, the crisis passes and the thoughts go away. Like the old song that says: What a difference a day makes, a little 24 hours!! What would happen if we could be more aware about the people around us and help them in their crisis and stay with them until their crisis passes? If it happens to us, it sure can happen to others as well.
It is time for us to think and talk about these issues. We are not ashamed to talk about our heart conditions or diabetes or asthma. But when it comes to depression and suicide thoughts, we feel ashamed and fear the stigma. But how can we pass through crisis if we don’t talk about it? Let us have the discussion going on these issues and remove the meaningless stigma from our CULTURE OF LIVING.
