How do I explain?

[coffeehouse]

How do I successfully explain the pain I have and how I feel when I am suicidal? I have tried so many times in various ways but, the people around me never seem to get it or they say they kinda understand now but when I have actually tried to kill myself they are mad and they just don't seem to understand.

 

[edward77]

if u dont mind u can tell me.. i am a good listener.

 

[not-2-b-the-answer]

To someone who isn't suicidal or never has been, they aren't likely to understand. If you have access to a therapist maybe they could help them understand.
There may be books on how to explain it... I don't know.

 

[Carina]

Yeah, I honestly don't know if someone who hasn't been suicidal can understand. I know my best friend hasn't been, but his dad, and like a dozen others have been--and he only could understand the analogy of depression-suicide like airplane in holding pattern is your normal state, sometimes it goes higher, but is always in holding, refueling plane are antidepressants, landing/etc is death.

And even then, he still doesn't get how people could entirely, and he's lost one friend to suicide.


I mean maybe like "picture your mother died, now picture that repeating non-stop forever, got it? good, that's your happy state, it only gets worse"
And really that's probably not the best way either lol, but it might be shocking enough to get through to them.

 

[BlueWidow]

It seems like it's almost impossible to explain it to someone who has never "been there before", and even worse is the person who has been there but has somehow gotten better because then they get the idea that everyone else should be able to get better too because they did. I don't know if anyone else has ever encountered anyone like this, but I certainly have. They may be the only people that are actually worse than people who have no experience with mental illness or suicidal ideation.

 

[Starrywaters]

It's incredibly hard.. almost impossible to explain to somebody how being suicidal feels unless the person has been there themselves. Pain is unique, how we deal with it is also unique. I find this forum a godsend, a safe space because I know that the people around me here understand.

 

[Lotus]

My family also gets mad at me for having CTB thought and plans. It only makes me want to isolate from them. I feel even worse when they get mad at me and treating me like I've done something wrong.

 

[Root]

Usually people don't understand. They don't even want to. I have friends who themselves have been suicidal, but they still don't understand. So I don't talk about it anymore. It's a shame you can't talk about it to people you're close with, but luckily this forum exists.

 

[reto]

How do I successfully explain the pain I have and how I feel when I am suicidal? I have tried so many times in various ways but, the people around me never seem to get it or they say they kinda understand now but when I have actually tried to kill myself they are mad and they just don't seem to understand.

It's taken me decades to realise that people cannot understand, unless they are in the same position. Realising that however just creates a feeling of pointlessness

 

[R_N]

I think it's impossible.

 

[BPD Barbie]

Generally I find that people who've never experienced mental health issues can't comprehend these feelings. Its not something that someone would even try to imagine how it feels either. It's incredibly hard to find someone who truly understands the lowest of the low as we all experience it differently as well.

 

[HannahB]

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

David Foster Wallace

 

[Jean4]

 

[coffeehouse]

Its just a shame that you would end up feeling super shitty and no one gets it. I guess you guys are right though, I lost a friend to suicide in high school and I didnt understand why she did it at all. Now having gone through it I understand what its like to feel those ways.

 

[Sensei]

Generally I find that people who've never experienced mental health issues can't comprehend these feelings. Its not something that someone would even try to imagine how it feels either. It's incredibly hard to find someone who truly understands the lowest of the low as we all experience it differently as well.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm a somewhat extreme example as I'm bipolar, but I remember that I had problems fathoming how it's possible for a human being to feel such pain when I had my first depressive episode. There's not a chance in hell that I would have been able to understand any of that before I fell ill.

This is a very big problem. I'd like to liken it to being poisoned and dying slowly. You try to make people understand that you're dying, but they think you're alright just because you look fine on the outside. I can tell that some members of this forum cry for help and don't really want to die, but no one's listening and they don't see any other option than dying by their own hand. Basically, they cry for help into their death. It must be possible to come up with some kind of method for making other people understand our situation.

 

[Return2Dust]

I've tried explaining my depression like this:
I'm drowning in the ocean and I can see everyone on the beach - happy, smiling, having fun. They can't see me in the ocean and I feel utterly hopeless about being saved. I try to get them to imagine the fear and pain of drowning. Or, being buried underground and using a teaspoon to dig yourself out. You know the situation is dire, but you're too tired to dig.

 

[ARW3N]

Sometimes pictures speak louder than words. Does my profile picture convey anything at all of my melancholic mood?

 

[Carina]

Sometimes pictures speak louder than words. Does my profile picture convey anything at all of my melancholic mood?

Really I've been looking at pictures and names for a bit and many seem to be reflective of the person and their state of mind.

Mine included but not sure if that obvious

 

[ARW3N]

Really I've been looking at pictures and names for a bit and many seem to be reflective of the person and their state of mind.

Mine included but not sure if that obvious

It might not seem obvious to a non-suicidal person but your profile pic makes me feel like an insignificant speck on a small planet that can be wiped out by a stray asteroid at any moment.

 

[Not_Quite_Dead_Yet]

It seems like it's almost impossible to explain it to someone who has never "been there before", and even worse is the person who has been there but has somehow gotten better because then they get the idea that everyone else should be able to get better too because they did. I don't know if anyone else has ever encountered anyone like this, but I certainly have. They may be the only people that are actually worse than people who have no experience with mental illness or suicidal ideation.

I get what you are saying; it is akin to ex-smokers becoming Smoke Nazi's after they have quit. Certainly less serious than suicidal ideation but the same kind of reasoning: I got better (stopped smoking) so why can't you?

 

[Carina]

It might not seem obvious to a non-suicidal person but your profile pic makes me feel like an insignificant speck on a small planet that can be wiped out by a stray asteroid at any moment.

It is, or supposed to be, the Carina Nebula. And basically I believe that we came from star stuff, and we return to star stuff. The other works too.

 

[Jean4]

It is, or supposed to be, the Carina Nebula. And basically I believe that we came from star stuff, and we return to star stuff. The other works too.

Love your name, and with the snow on your avatar , it can be anything. ;)

 

[Carina]

Love your name, and with the snow on your avatar , it can be anything. ;)

And with the "a" at the end it sounded kind of feminine, so appropriate too

 

[Jean4]

And with the "a" at the end it sounded kind of feminine, so appropriate too

The Universe is androgynous ;)