ON SUICIDE:

1. Feeling suicidal is not giving up on life.  Feeling suicidal is being desperate for things to be different.  People are holding out for a better person they know they can be and a better life they know they deserve, but they feel totally blocked.  Discover what the vision for a better life is, and see how it is only possible to realize if you stick around to find out what can happen.  Turn some of that suicidal energy towards risking change in life.  Find out what behavior patterns or life condition you want to kill instead of taking your whole life.  Is there a way to change those patterns that you haven't tried yet?  Who can you turn to for help changing those patterns?

2. People who are suicidal are often really isolated.  They need someone to talk with confidentially on a deep level, someone who is not going to judge them or reject them.  Did something happen?  What do you need?  Be patient with long silences, let the person speak.  Let people ask for anything, an errand, food, a place to stay, etc.  Often suicidal people really don't want to be honest because they're so ashamed of what they are feeling and it is an incredibly hard thing to admit.  Be patient and calm.

3.  People need to hear things that might seem obvious, like:  You are a good person.  Your friendship has helped me.  You are a cool person and you have done cool things, even if you can't remember them now.  You have loved life and you can love it again.  There are ways to make your feelings change and your head start working better.  If you kill yourself, nothing in your life will ever change.  You will hurt people you love.  You will never know what could have happened.  Your problems are very real, but there are other ways to deal with them.

4. Suicidal people are often under the sway of a critical voice or belief that lies about who and what they are.  It might be voice of a parent, an abuser, someone who betrayed you, or simply the twisted black version of yourself that depression and madness have put in your brain.  Usually this voice is not perceiving reality accurately-- get a reality check from someone close and stop believing these voices.  You aren't a "failure", and change isn't impossible.  And You Are Not Alone -- Other people have felt pain this deep and terrible, and they have found ways to change their lives and survive.  You are not the only one.

5. There are ways to get past this and change your life.

-Navigating Space Between Brilliance and Madness, Page 39

A QUOTE:

"Sometimes wanting to kill yourself just means you don't want to live the life you are living and you can change your life with that power - cuz what the hell - you were about to Lose your whole life - so why not instead Lose your school/job/pretense/fears/adherence to society's standards/shame.  I have found some of my suicidal episodes to be strangely liberating in that way.  I wouldn't take back any of what made me who I am today.

Venture Endure Survive.  Sometimes you can thrive and bloom like a flower but sometimes your goal is just to exist and survive like a cactus."

-Navigating Space Between Brilliance and Madness, Page 40