When I was actually suicidal, what kept me from going through with it was:
1) Although my plan had three separate ways by which it could kill me, it was possible that all would fail, such that I would wind up still in all the pain that was driving me to kill myself, plus on life support machines and with people hovering over me annoying me.
2) I would actually have to get up and do it, which was effort.
When I told people about the plan in #1, though, it was because I wanted them to listen to me. I was back off the brink for some reaon, and I wanted to talk about where I'd been. Somebody who tells you they're suicidal isn't asking you to talk him out of it; he's asking you to listen. Which is why the advice you were taught works. Someone who listens is a precious gift, there, where you can still feel the pull of suicide, even someone you suspect is listening just because they're socialized/paid to do it.
On the other hand, when you're out feeling the pull, you've had lots of (people you perceive as) idiots, giving you (seemingly) bad advice and (seemingly) pointless arguments. I, at least, didn't want to hear yet another theory as to why suicide was a bad idea; frustration at such yammerers made suicide look like a better idea the longer they talked.
The advice you were given back in high school was distilled professional expertise. Evaluate carefully before you dismiss it.
When I told people about the plan in #1, though, it was because I wanted them to listen to me. I was back off the brink for some reaon, and I wanted to talk about where I'd been. Somebody who tells you they're suicidal isn't asking you to talk him out of it; he's asking you to listen.
Just wanted to say that I relate very strongly to this. When I was heavily mentally ill and suicidal, I was afraid of reaching out to other people precisely because that might mean I only wanted emotional support rather than being serious about killing myself. People who really wanted to end their lives, I reasoned, would avoid deliberately setting off alarm bells in others that might lead to interference. That I eventually chose to open up about my psychological condition at all (and thereby deviate from the "paradigmatic" rational suicidal person) gave me evidence that I didn't want to kill myself and helped me come to terms with recovering. Sorry if this is rambling.
A few disclaimers. I am not a mental health professional, as is probably more than apparent. I have some experience dealing with both ostensibly and explicitly suicidal friends. My personal history also includes periods of depression and bouts of suicidal intentions of varying degrees of intensity. In addition, have an intellectual interest in the subject. If anyone with better experience, knowledge or training in this area wants to correct me, I implore you to do so. Dealing with a suicidal friend or loved one is one situation where you definitely do not want wrong information in your head.
With that out of the way...
It is my belief that if someone has a genuine, premeditated and well-thought-out intention to end their life, you won't find out about it until they've already done it. It will be planned in such a way that they won't be disturbed, and won't fail on the basis of conviction. They'll do it 'properly'. As a result, this advice applies to the more melodramatic 'cry for help' expression of suicidal intent.
People don't just suddenly decide that it's a good idea to kill themselves. It usually isn't a very good idea. It's usually the result of a sequence of events w...
This actually came up for real on this site a few months ago. Not a literal ledge, but a blog post and comments. It didn't work.
ETA: Sorry, depressing topic. I should have explained more. It came to the attention of LW that a former LW user had mentioned what might have been a suicide plan on his personal site. A lot of LessWrongers attempted to dissuade him. He apparently disclaimed any suicidal intentions and deleted the post, but I'm sorry to say it later became clear that he soon did, in fact, kill himself.
An alternative argument for not killing yourself yet: in the U.S., life insurance is required by law to cover deaths by suicide that occur at least two years after the policy was purchased, and the "return on investment" is ridiculously large; when I looked up insurance quotes a few years ago, an otherwise healthy young man can get a million dollar insurance policy for an annual premium of $600. Of course, money isn't of much use to a dead man... or is it? You can designate a charity as the beneficiary of the policy, or simply make the charity the owner of the policy. And GiveWell gives some relatively low figures for the amount of money it takes to save a life in Africa - somewhere around $1000-$2000. If you kill yourself and didn't buy health insurance first, the people the insurance money could have saved won't be. So if the would-be suicide is also altruistic, you might be able to talk them into deciding to delay. And if you tell them this plan and they actually go and do it, well, at least you've saved more lives than were lost...
I reviewed the stuff I'd learned back in high school ("Listen." "Be supportive." "Don't argue." "Etc etc etc.") I have trouble believing that this would work outside of movieland, especially on strangers. More so, in person I'm an awkward, fidgeting introvert---the impact of everything I say is thus diminished, and I sound very insincere or nosy, like I'm following a bad movie script, when I say anything like, "You are not alone in this. I’m here for you." or "How can I best support you right now?" I doubt that this would sound any better in writing.
It might seem to you that this isn't the sort of thing that would work in real life, but in general, yes it does.
If you're worried about sounding insincere, try and think of something genuine and non-trite that you can say. For instance, many suicidal people don't believe that anyone would care or be meaningfully affected by their deaths; try and think of a sincere way that you could tell them that you do care whether they live or die.
Any specific words you might have been taught are unimportant, they're really just a guideline to the sort of structure you ought to assume.
There are specialists in this field, namely suicide hotlines, suicide crisis centers, etc. who are prepared to help your friends at a moment's notice.
The argument you give here (the "bum comparison principle") is the exact same one I've used. If you can commit suicide, then you should be able to walk away.
This worked for me from my mid-teens to some time around my late thirties. What I'm finding now is that depressive episodes much more ideation along the lines of "Nah, it's just too much work, I can't be bothered."
Mostly my response to this was to establish the "other people matter" principle, which implies that if I'm going to kill myself I ought to do so in a way that minimizes the amount of suffering I cause others, which I'm pretty sure means I should make it look like an accident or like natural causes, which takes a fair amount of work. By the time I feel like doing that work, I'm no longer in the mental state where it seems like a good idea.
This is a series of posts by a fellow who volunteered on a suicide hotline for a number of years which I found informative. It provides the straightest answers I have seen to the question: how do you talk a stranger off the ledge?
This is an aggregation of resources on another website which has discussed the issue in detail.
Strange this should come up now. Two days ago my best friend attempted "suicide". (I put it in quotes because it was a fairly obvious cry-for-help, not an actual I-wanted-to-be-dead-but-screwed-up). I've spent the whole weekend with fallout and mitigation (visiting in the hospital, cleaning up his apartment for when he's released, contact his mother & boss, etc).
I'm glad it was only a cry-for-help, because I find it difficult to argue with someone who has decided they are better off dead. I figure they are probably a better judge of that than...
Has anyone seen the Singapore Police Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Police_Force_Crisis_Negotiation_Unit) or another professional crisis negotiation unit do crisis negotiation? Literature on the topic is unspecific. For instance, I doubt police negotiators use ]relaxation techniques(relaxation techniques.) in a heat of crisis negotiation.
I suspect that people on the edge would be fairly different to one another. I suspect that the highest reliability strategy would relate to relaxing the person on the edge, but that's not why I'm commenting. If someone is literally on the edge, it would be useful to be able to make inferences about how rational they are being. If someone is jumping at less than 45m, they are probably doing it in hot blood or they are not very good at researching available balconies. If it's higher, perhaps they've made a considered choice, and you ought to be actually comp...
IME, distracting them until they come down helps. (I've never dealt with a physical ledge, occasionally over the phone.)
It's a good real-world example of "shut up and do the impossible". It's also unspeakably draining and I want not to have to put in such effort ever again. But, of course, will and can if I have to.
I at least find the pain of impending loss much worse than actual loss. After an actual loss, I just move on. But I find an impending loss very oppressive. I'd check to see if the loss was impending, or had already occurred. If it has occurred, getting them to really accept that it has already occurred may help. If it hasn't occurred yet, temporize, and tell them that you never know how things will turn out. Wouldn't it be a shame to kill yourself when the Awful Thing ended up not happening? At least stick around to find out.
Along the lines of temporizing,...
Do you mean something like that if one has that many problems one could just walk away from them and become a bum...? I think that one could think that they or the world or some interaction of the two is the problem, and there's no escaping from that by becoming a bum.
As you have probably learned, you want to establish a connection first. Given that you had suicidal thoughts yourself, you can start with something like "Yeah, man, some days I want to off myself, too. Life sucks. I swear, if I had a pill handy I might have done it already." You then try to go on by comparing the issues that make you think of ending it all (loss of a job, of a partner, bullying, depression, illness, ...), asking for advice in your circumstances etc.
There is no point trying to convince them of anything until they trust that you u...
Do you mean something like that if one has that many problems one could just walk away from them and become a bum...? I think that one could think that they or the world or some interaction of the two is the problem, and there's no escaping from that by becoming a bum.
YMMV. Its not about rational proof, but rather what works for you. For YEARS the idea that before I would ever kill myself I would just go live under the boardwalk at Santa Cruz and drink 1/2 gallon bottles of red wine was an extremely comforting thought. In my later life as I have contemplated my own demise, I remember that and think how much harder it is now to take comfort from that, but not impossible.
In my case, I recognize any suicidal thoughts as just frustration, signalling, wanting to call the world's bluff. I NEVER want to kill myself when I...
Last month, two people far at the periphery of my social circles have threatened suicide. Seems like a sign for me to learn some ledge-fu.
I reviewed the stuff I'd learned back in high school ("Listen." "Be supportive." "Don't argue." "Etc etc etc.") I have trouble believing that this would work outside of movieland, especially on strangers. More so, in person I'm an awkward, fidgeting introvert---the impact of everything I say is thus diminished, and I sound very insincere or clinical, like I'm following a bad movie script, when I say anything like, "You are not alone in this. I’m here for you." or "How can I best support you right now?" I doubt that this would sound any better in writing.
I suppose I could split my question into two related ones: what would you say to a person threatening to commit suicide, 1. in person, and 2. in an email?
I'm looking for out-of-the-box ideas that don't rely on charisma or compassion shining through. Personally, if I ever need to talk myself out of suicidal thoughts, I apply the "bum comparison principle": if my life is so crummy that I'm willing to commit suicide, then I should be willing to just walk out on everything I value and drift off in a random direction, survive by dine-and-dashing out of cheap restaurants and wash dishes if I get caught, maybe take odd jobs or hitchhike or gather roots and berries or blog from public libraries. I don't see this possibility in a negative light, and yet I still haven't done it. To me, it means that however bad my life may seem, I'm still too attached to it to walk out; therefore, suicide isn't on the menu.
People have different reasons to want suicide, and I understand that what works for me with my first world problems probably won't work for a person who is in too much physical pain from an incurable disease. To the best of my knowledge, the two people I mentioned earlier are both unskilled laborers who had lost their jobs, one of them so long ago that he's no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. I don't think I'll meet these particular people again, but I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on what I could've said if my brain hadn't frozen.