Discussion Do you think many suicides are actually impulsive?

[Forever Sleep]

I guess I've always struggled with this idea... When do people consider a suicide to be impulsive? I mean- I could envisage someone having some sort of psychotic episode and not really being able to think clearly. But- I wonder just how many people just suddenly decide to do it. One bad thing happens and they just decide.

It just seems implausible to me. I think most people have ideation a fair time- sometimes even years or decades before they commit. Even if it's a matter of months or weeks- is it really impulsive to act on it?

Of course, I can imagine the actual act being impulsive. Maybe that's needed in some cases to get over our survival instinct. But still- the thought process has already taken place- surely? As in- 'My life sucks. I don't feel able to change it. I'd be better off dead. Maybe I should kill myself- would I be ok with that? Yes.'

I find it really hard to believe that anyone would kill themselves without weighing up their options. That's not being impulsive- that's making a decision based on the facts and their own experience. Of course- people could still argue they made too hasty a decision. They didn't consider every option or- they were suffering from depression- so- their thinking had become distorted. I'd argue that that is different to thinking impulsively though. What do you think? Is there such a thing as an impulsive suicide and how common do you suppose they are?

 

[SCW]

I've spent nearly a year exhausting options. I generally over plan and research in other aspects of life too. It's likely person-by-person more than anything. We all come from different circumstances and backgrounds. An impulsive decision for me may be well thought out for you or vice versa.

Even without the thought of ctb in mind I'd say a fair few try to improve situations before finally just giving up. It seems sudden from an outside perspective but we really have no idea what was knocking around another person's head.

Those left behind form opinions based on their experience. A note may be too vague or ramble about something that makes it seem impulsive. Maybe that person had nobody to express their feelings to. Impulsive or not is just speculation.

My childhood friend ctb a few years ago. I had known he wasn't well for a couple years. He'd expressed his feelings to a couple close friends. His family, on the other hand, really didn't know a lot about him. I listened to talk about potential murder, drug overdoses, you name it. Just a bunch of folks that didn't know trying to make sense of something they couldn't understand from their perspective.

 

[Lys_C15H25N3O_d3]

i believe yes although many may have a background to it, the majority seems to take place "by impulse"... sometimes we don't know if "it was impulse" or .. someone was expecting that last chilly wind stream whispering on the ears..



Its overwhelming think plan and execute this

 

[LastOrder]

I think its a bit 50/50. On here i do think there is no impulse, since we all made the effort to make an account and talk about it because its a long term thing were dealing with. Ive watched a lot of suicide survival videos and a lot of them say theyre happy to live because they didnt mean to do it in the end. Which is indeed crazy to me too but it does happen. Often with guns or jumping for trains so they dont have to think about it

 

[LaVieEnRose]

I think we should draw a distinction between an impulsive suicide and one done on the urge. An impulsive suicide is done without much deliberation, if any. Suicides done on the urge include impulsive suicides but also include suicides done after a lot of deliberation but still at the moment of execution are spurred by a strong feeling of some kind (the "urge"). So I do feel like most suicides are carried out on the urge. The nature of the urge of an impulsive suicide tends to be " I have to die now (as opposed to live)" while the nature of the urge of a non-impulsive one tends to be "I have to die now (as opposed to a later time)."

 

[lefi]

I think that people who do it by impluse have in reality been planning on it for some time, but haven't found the courage to do it until that moment.

 

[nood11]

I guess I've always struggled with this idea... When do people consider a suicide to be impulsive? I mean- I could envisage someone having some sort of psychotic episode and not really being able to think clearly. But- I wonder just how many people just suddenly decide to do it. One bad thing happens and they just decide.

It just seems implausible to me. I think most people have ideation a fair time- sometimes even years or decades before they commit. Even if it's a matter of months or weeks- is it really impulsive to act on it?

Of course, I can imagine the actual act being impulsive. Maybe that's needed in some cases to get over our survival instinct. But still- the thought process has already taken place- surely? As in- 'My life sucks. I don't feel able to change it. I'd be better off dead. Maybe I should kill myself- would I be ok with that? Yes.'

I find it really hard to believe that anyone would kill themselves without weighing up their options. That's not being impulsive- that's making a decision based on the facts and their own experience. Of course- people could still argue they made too hasty a decision. They didn't consider every option or- they were suffering from depression- so- their thinking had become distorted. I'd argue that that is different to thinking impulsively though. What do you think? Is there such a thing as an impulsive suicide and how common do you suppose they are?

I can tell you for sure my suicidal thoughts are not impulsive at all. I've had the same recurring problems for years if not decades now. That kind of situation just wears down a person's resolve to keep plugging. I don't like how people say "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem". My problems are not temporary at all. Whether suicide is a solution remains to be seen. There are a lot of unknowns of killing yourself. What is the dying process like? Will I just injure myself and be a lifelong vegetable? What kind of afterlife awaits me if any?

 

[samsara_96]

Modern people in general tend to be oblivious to how going through an existential crisis feels like. I am not saying this to belittle or invalidate anyone because this is the impression I get from people. For example, this week I heard news of two suicides (one of whom I actually knewn) and I heard people questioning whether they really committed suicide because there were no suicide letters and they did not seem suicidal. One girl even claimed that the second suicide must be due to an impulse because people do not kill themselves like that and suicides are more "romantic" (I have no idea what she meant). But to me, it is hard to believe that a person would randomly commit suicide because as a fellow human-being, I know how important meaning is to everybody's life. And thinking that a person would judge their death to be more meaningful than existence, I can only show compassion for how painful their existence must have been to them. At least in this forum, we all know that that mental state is not an easy place to arrive at because the natural human tendency is continuing existence, not destroying it. Maybe not all, but most suicides that look so out of blue were probably carried out by people who simply hid their true inner world, and I am sure that there many people like that in this forum too.

 

[haibane]

There is definitely a lot, but i personally think that we underestimate how many are planned. Most of the time it's impossible to know if it was impulsive or planned, but it will still be counted as impulsive cause understanding that someone can genuinely want to die is really hard to understand for most people.

 

[ddn.ctb]

I plan my CTB to be impulsive. I have all the plans ready along with a CTB kit, What I need is the impulse to do it, Too much planning would get in the way of it.

My goal would be an impulse while on a business trip where I have my own little kit ready to go. The idea is that the wave of an impulse of will flow over me, and I immediately set it up and do it.

If not, all the SI will start kicking in - I start thinking of family, friends and reasons why not to do it

Being impulsive would make it happen

 

[penguinl0v3s]

People don't mean passive suicide ideation, impulsive means the time between active suicide ideation and the attempt.