Venting Don't know how to talk to anyone irl about my suicide plan

[lampshade321]

I am pretty deeply suicidal right now and have been for the past two months or so. I am a college student and have basically convinced myself that when I return to school in September, I will order sodium nitrite through one of those online labs (maybe I've missed a policy that they only ship to institutions or something, but it looks incredibly easy to me to purchase a bottle for $50 off Cole-Parmer or similar provider to a PO box) and then kill myself, so that my parents don't have to be the ones to find my body. Practically every day, even when I am otherwise very happy and enjoying life, I find myself thinking things like, "It's good that if this is going to be my last month alive, at least it's going pretty well and my family will have good memories of me."

I have had bouts of suicidal thinking in the past, several plans, and one "attempt" where I identified a tall, public building 30 minutes away and planned to jump from it, but only got as far as spraining my ankle jumping from my bathroom window before coming back home. However, most of the time, if I wait out the suicidal thinking for 1-2 days, or a week at most, it goes away. This is the first time it's lasted this long.

I am aware that I should probably talk to someone irl about it. However, I'm dealing with a mixture of reasons why I am strongly motivated not to.
1) VERY MUCH want to avoid involuntary hospitalization. Truly would rather be dead than have that happen, and not just in the "well I am suicidal so I would rather be dead than a great many things" sense
2) Fear of public embarrassment. This one is pretty stupid. Related to the first one, I'm pretty sure that if I told anyone how bad my suicidal thinking is, my parents would at minimum withdraw me from school (any friends or counselors I talked to would likely report me and also probably be right to). I really can't handle the social shame of being so deeply suicidal I have to drop out of school.
3) Perception that I am causing trouble for the people around me. I don't want other people to feel burdened by the fact that I am so depressed. I especially don't want anyone to not report me, but then feel guilty if/when I commit suicide. On the other hand, if they do report me, it's back to problem numbers 1 and 2 and honestly I don't know that I could bring myself to forgive anyone who got me hospitalized.

I have only ever used a suicide hotline once, because it ended in them going in circles with me for thirty minutes, then declaring that they were going to call the police and hanging up the phone. The police didn't show up for an hour, which was honestly worse than if they'd responded quickly, and on the whole it was a very negative experience.

I find myself writing out suicide letters in my head and attempting to determine who I should be writing to, what I should say, and when I should do it. I think about the impact on other people and feel pretty bad, but I feel like I can't make myself push through this for the sake of other people. As incredibly pathetic as it sounds, the only times I find myself wavering are when I think about things like "well that next comic issue hasn't come out yet and I would like to see what happens." I have it all pretty planned out - I'll do it on a weekend, I'll tell my friends that I'm headed home for a few days, and I'll do a schedule send email to campus security informing of my death for two days later so that no one has to be traumatized by a decomposed dead body when they inevitably open up my room trying to find me. Or I'll rent a motel, not quite decided on that part. I worry that doing it on college campus might be worse for copycat suicides.

Honestly, if I told someone today and dropped out of school and either got hospitalized or put under significant suicide watch, I could probably make it another two years. Except, though it's pretty ridiculous, I really hate the thought of being a failure. If I'm a college dropout who sat at home and did nothing but cause the people around him pain for two years, and then I committed suicide, it would be sad but like people expect that. If I'm a straight-A student at a top college with good job prospects and THEN I commit suicide, at least people will be sad for me. Which is really an awful way of thinking and very selfish, because shouldn't my goal to be at least to minimize the hurt that the people around me experience? Why would I want to cause extra, unnecessary pain to people? I actually do feel pretty terrible about that part of the plan and my motivations, but I can't get myself over the fact that at least if I die now, people won't be disappointed in me and perceive me as a failure.

I don't really know why I'm even posting this. I guess I'm just looking for the ability to vent and talk about this without the fear that they will be able to get me hospitalized. I'm not sure that I like the idea of dying, but I think it feels more like an inevitability that I may as well make as pleasant for myself as possible. Why try and struggle through several more years that will be even worse than my current situation, when I know that it's going to end this way? I am so sad so much of the time, and I hate myself. I am incredibly, incredibly lucky with my financial circumstances and my family and basically everything else, and I still am so sad and depressed, so I can't imagine any material thing that would improve my mental health. I've tried antidepressants and talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy and exercise and keto diet and supplements and hormones and I am STILL this way. I really can't imagine thing ever getting better and I feel like I may as well kill myself at a point in time where people will remember me as a tragedy rather than a disappointment.

 

[enso]

Hi!

Thanks for your post!

When it comes to therapy, you don't really have to talk about your suicidal ideation with specialist to prevent involuntary hospitalization. Instead, you can just talk about constant sadness, lack of motivation and etc. It will give you possibility to take antidepressants. Considering your previous experience, there are really a lot of antidepressants, so it takes time to get what will work for you. How do you think, if you could find something, that will make you less depressed, feel 'lighter', would you like to try it? I can't really say, how much time it will take, but in the end you could really get some relief!

About burdening other people. If it is important for you, how do you think, what will be more burdening for your parents/relatives/close ones - to have living child but in depressed state or to have child that killed himself? I am not trying to make you feel bad for them, but if it is important reason for you - what will burden them more?

And even if someone will treat you like a failure, does it really changes anything? If someone treats you like failure or successful person right now, what does it mean for you?
Sometimes, decatastrophization can really help. Just image if all bad things in context of people's attitude about you happened right now, does it really mean something for you?

 

[bagel12]

I am pretty deeply suicidal right now and have been for the past two months or so. I am a college student and have basically convinced myself that when I return to school in September, I will order sodium nitrite through one of those online labs (maybe I've missed a policy that they only ship to institutions or something, but it looks incredibly easy to me to purchase a bottle for $50 off Cole-Parmer or similar provider to a PO box) and then kill myself, so that my parents don't have to be the ones to find my body. Practically every day, even when I am otherwise very happy and enjoying life, I find myself thinking things like, "It's good that if this is going to be my last month alive, at least it's going pretty well and my family will have good memories of me."

I have had bouts of suicidal thinking in the past, several plans, and one "attempt" where I identified a tall, public building 30 minutes away and planned to jump from it, but only got as far as spraining my ankle jumping from my bathroom window before coming back home. However, most of the time, if I wait out the suicidal thinking for 1-2 days, or a week at most, it goes away. This is the first time it's lasted this long.

I am aware that I should probably talk to someone irl about it. However, I'm dealing with a mixture of reasons why I am strongly motivated not to.
1) VERY MUCH want to avoid involuntary hospitalization. Truly would rather be dead than have that happen, and not just in the "well I am suicidal so I would rather be dead than a great many things" sense
2) Fear of public embarrassment. This one is pretty stupid. Related to the first one, I'm pretty sure that if I told anyone how bad my suicidal thinking is, my parents would at minimum withdraw me from school (any friends or counselors I talked to would likely report me and also probably be right to). I really can't handle the social shame of being so deeply suicidal I have to drop out of school.
3) Perception that I am causing trouble for the people around me. I don't want other people to feel burdened by the fact that I am so depressed. I especially don't want anyone to not report me, but then feel guilty if/when I commit suicide. On the other hand, if they do report me, it's back to problem numbers 1 and 2 and honestly I don't know that I could bring myself to forgive anyone who got me hospitalized.

I have only ever used a suicide hotline once, because it ended in them going in circles with me for thirty minutes, then declaring that they were going to call the police and hanging up the phone. The police didn't show up for an hour, which was honestly worse than if they'd responded quickly, and on the whole it was a very negative experience.

I find myself writing out suicide letters in my head and attempting to determine who I should be writing to, what I should say, and when I should do it. I think about the impact on other people and feel pretty bad, but I feel like I can't make myself push through this for the sake of other people. As incredibly pathetic as it sounds, the only times I find myself wavering are when I think about things like "well that next comic issue hasn't come out yet and I would like to see what happens." I have it all pretty planned out - I'll do it on a weekend, I'll tell my friends that I'm headed home for a few days, and I'll do a schedule send email to campus security informing of my death for two days later so that no one has to be traumatized by a decomposed dead body when they inevitably open up my room trying to find me. Or I'll rent a motel, not quite decided on that part. I worry that doing it on college campus might be worse for copycat suicides.

Honestly, if I told someone today and dropped out of school and either got hospitalized or put under significant suicide watch, I could probably make it another two years. Except, though it's pretty ridiculous, I really hate the thought of being a failure. If I'm a college dropout who sat at home and did nothing but cause the people around him pain for two years, and then I committed suicide, it would be sad but like people expect that. If I'm a straight-A student at a top college with good job prospects and THEN I commit suicide, at least people will be sad for me. Which is really an awful way of thinking and very selfish, because shouldn't my goal to be at least to minimize the hurt that the people around me experience? Why would I want to cause extra, unnecessary pain to people? I actually do feel pretty terrible about that part of the plan and my motivations, but I can't get myself over the fact that at least if I die now, people won't be disappointed in me and perceive me as a failure.

I don't really know why I'm even posting this. I guess I'm just looking for the ability to vent and talk about this without the fear that they will be able to get me hospitalized. I'm not sure that I like the idea of dying, but I think it feels more like an inevitability that I may as well make as pleasant for myself as possible. Why try and struggle through several more years that will be even worse than my current situation, when I know that it's going to end this way? I am so sad so much of the time, and I hate myself. I am incredibly, incredibly lucky with my financial circumstances and my family and basically everything else, and I still am so sad and depressed, so I can't imagine any material thing that would improve my mental health. I've tried antidepressants and talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy and exercise and keto diet and supplements and hormones and I am STILL this way. I really can't imagine thing ever getting better and I feel like I may as well kill myself at a point in time where people will remember me as a tragedy rather than a disappointment.

first of all i just wanted to say that i'm sorry you're dealing with all of this. dealing with suicidal thoughts alongside the pressure of avoiding hospitalization and not wanting to make your friends and family worry is a lot to balance.

while reading this post, i see you consider two options at the extremes, and not a lot in between. either you tell nobody, get no help, and die, or you are involuntarily hospitalized, socially shamed for being suicidal, and drop out of school. either you're a straight A student at a top college with good job prospects, or you're a college dropout who causes pain to the people around them and burdens them and describes themselves as a failure. can you think of options between these two extremes?

i see a lot of consideration here of what others will think of you. will they perceive you as a failure, or a disappointment, a tragedy? what will they think if you drop out of college? what will they think if you die? and so on. but in my experience, most people are so focused on their own lives that they don't really think about what other people are up to, much less shame them for it. and if they did shame you for it, why would they opinions matter or be meaningful? if someone is such an asshole that they shame people who drop out or deal with mental health issues, why would i value their opinions? lots of my friends dropped out of college, they're great people.

it sounds like you have high expectations of yourself, and/or you're in an environment where there are high expectations placed upon you. but if one of your friends dropped out or took some time off school, would you treat them as harshly as you're treating yourself? if one of your friends attempted suicide, would you view them as harshly as you view yourself?

you mention that talk therapy didn't work, but you want to avoid hospitalization. i was wondering if you've considered any options aside from those two? maybe it could at make things a little more bearable, or improve your quality of life. it's pretty common for suicidal thoughts to be brought up in therapy. as long as you're careful about what you say, it shouldn't cause issues. most therapists view hospitalization as a last resort for when you are in immediate danger. usually they ask you to try PHP or IOP first. for partial hospitalization programs, on weekdays you go to the hospital in the morning, leave in the afternoon, and live/sleep at home. on weekends you don't go to the hospital. intensive outpatient programs let you maintain your original work/school schedule, they are a few hours a day a few times a week, after work hours. another option to consider is trying a different therapy modality that's better for suicidal people like DBT, ACT, existential therapy, etc. you could also try a therapist who has experience with suicidal patients or even one who specializes in suicidal ideation. also have you tried meds aside from standard antidepressants? ssris straight up don't work for some people, some people benefit more from other types of meds.

anyway i mention this because of one of my close friends who attempted suicide. at the time he was diagnosed with treatment resistant depression. he had tried various therapists and meds and nothing worked. he was hospitalized at first due to the attempt. but after he left the hospital, he took a semester off and did a partial hospitalization program (which anyone can join, not just people who were previously hospitalized, and not just suicidal people). the partial hospitalization program was DBT, it seemed to help him a lot. it turns out he had other previously undiagnosed mental conditions and things improved after he tried a different therapy modality and different meds (not antidepressants). it's been more than 5 years and he hasn't attempted since. he seems genuinely happy, he still deals with some depression but it's way better than before.

you mention that you don't want to drop out, could you just take a semester off? at my college it was somewhat common for people to take a semester off or even a year off because they just needed a break from school, they were taking care of a family member, they were traveling, they had an internship or job, etc. so when my friend took a semester off, nobody knew that he was suicidal or anything like that. he came back next semester with no issues. a couple people asked him what he was up during that semester off so he just came up with a lie. he was worried about how people would react but it ended up being no big deal.

you mentioned that your current bout of ideation has lasted two months, is it possible to give yourself some more time to try to improve things before making a decision? i know it doesn't feel this way right now, but sometimes this is a transient depressive episode, and often things can feel better with treatment. for me personally i feel that two months is not long enough to be certain, especially because it is a permanent and irreversible decision, and you are young. but of course your bodily autonomy is respected here at sasu no matter what. wishing you the best

 

[lampshade321]

Hi!

Thanks for your post!

When it comes to therapy, you don't really have to talk about your suicidal ideation with specialist to prevent involuntary hospitalization. Instead, you can just talk about constant sadness, lack of motivation and etc. It will give you possibility to take antidepressants. Considering your previous experience, there are really a lot of antidepressants, so it takes time to get what will work for you. How do you think, if you could find something, that will make you less depressed, feel 'lighter', would you like to try it? I can't really say, how much time it will take, but in the end you could really get some relief!

About burdening other people. If it is important for you, how do you think, what will be more burdening for your parents/relatives/close ones - to have living child but in depressed state or to have child that killed himself? I am not trying to make you feel bad for them, but if it is important reason for you - what will burden them more?

And even if someone will treat you like a failure, does it really changes anything? If someone treats you like failure or successful person right now, what does it mean for you?
Sometimes, decatastrophization can really help. Just image if all bad things in context of people's attitude about you happened right now, does it really mean something for you?

I don't want to blame other people for my internal problems, but a therapist I had fucked me up quite badly. She asked me if it made me feel better when I got attention for being depressed/suicidal, and if I liked being depressed because I wasn't working to fix my mental health (i.e. doing the exercises). I had therapy sessions with her once a week for a year that sent me into horrible depressive episodes until I finally worked up the courage to quit. When I am planning out my suicide note, I find that I want everybody in my life to know that they have no responsibility for my actions and not to feel guilty, except for her, who is truly the only person in my entire life who I blame at all for my depression.

I am of course aware that the majority of therapists are not like this, but I have very strong negative associations with therapists because of her. I did try going to one more therapist after her for a few months, but I found that I was entirely unable to open up because I was so scared that they would say the same things to me. Which they probably could have helped me work through, but a bit of an ironic catch 22--I couldn't talk to the therapist about not being able to talk to them.

 

[lampshade321]

first of all i just wanted to say that i'm sorry you're dealing with all of this. dealing with suicidal thoughts alongside the pressure of avoiding hospitalization and not wanting to make your friends and family worry is a lot to balance.

Thank you. It means a lot. I really don't know how to talk to anyone irl.

while reading this post, i see you consider two options at the extremes, and not a lot in between. either you tell nobody, get no help, and die, or you are involuntarily hospitalized, socially shamed for being suicidal, and drop out of school. either you're a straight A student at a top college with good job prospects, or you're a college dropout who causes pain to the people around them and burdens them and describes themselves as a failure. can you think of options between these two extremes?

i see a lot of consideration here of what others will think of you. will they perceive you as a failure, or a disappointment, a tragedy? what will they think if you drop out of college? what will they think if you die? and so on. but in my experience, most people are so focused on their own lives that they don't really think about what other people are up to, much less shame them for it. and if they did shame you for it, why would they opinions matter or be meaningful? if someone is such an asshole that they shame people who drop out or deal with mental health issues, why would i value their opinions? lots of my friends dropped out of college, they're great people.

Basically everyone I know is highly successful or on a path to be highly successful. Dropping out of college just results in my parents being disappointed in me (plus having wasted an absurd amount of money on my school), and also will cause me to drift apart from my friends. Hell, I had trouble staying in touch over summer break, but getting back to college resulted in pretty immediate reconnection. Even if they are not perceiving me as a failure I think I just will end up with no friends and worse off than before. That might actually be better in order to minimize the people hurt emotionally if I were to kill myself, but I am too selfish to wait.

it sounds like you have high expectations of yourself, and/or you're in an environment where there are high expectations placed upon you. but if one of your friends dropped out or took some time off school, would you treat them as harshly as you're treating yourself? if one of your friends attempted suicide, would you view them as harshly as you view yourself?

One of my friends did take time off school for mental health reasons, but she was dealing with some horrible stuff. I don't want to overshare her details but she came from an incredibly difficult background and had a major family emergency occur that was very bad for her mental health, and I completely understand why her life circumstances would lead her to be depressed. Like, anyone who hears her story and DOESN'T understand that has no empathy. Except that I am the total opposite and incredibly privileged in life and yet I can't get my act together because there's just something fundamentally broken inside of me. People go through terrible things every day and get through them and here I am, some fucking spoiled brat who can't appreciate the good things I have in life because I might, horror of all horrors, have to get a fucking job after college.

you mention that talk therapy didn't work, but you want to avoid hospitalization. i was wondering if you've considered any options aside from those two? maybe it could at make things a little more bearable, or improve your quality of life. it's pretty common for suicidal thoughts to be brought up in therapy. as long as you're careful about what you say, it shouldn't cause issues. most therapists view hospitalization as a last resort for when you are in immediate danger. usually they ask you to try PHP or IOP first. for partial hospitalization programs, on weekdays you go to the hospital in the morning, leave in the afternoon, and live/sleep at home. on weekends you don't go to the hospital. intensive outpatient programs let you maintain your original work/school schedule, they are a few hours a day a few times a week, after work hours. another option to consider is trying a different therapy modality that's better for suicidal people like DBT, ACT, existential therapy, etc. you could also try a therapist who has experience with suicidal patients or even one who specializes in suicidal ideation. also have you tried meds aside from standard antidepressants? ssris straight up don't work for some people, some people benefit more from other types of meds.

anyway i mention this because of one of my close friends who attempted suicide. at the time he was diagnosed with treatment resistant depression. he had tried various therapists and meds and nothing worked. he was hospitalized at first due to the attempt. but after he left the hospital, he took a semester off and did a partial hospitalization program (which anyone can join, not just people who were previously hospitalized, and not just suicidal people). the partial hospitalization program was DBT, it seemed to help him a lot. it turns out he had other previously undiagnosed mental conditions and things improved after he tried a different therapy modality and different meds (not antidepressants). it's been more than 5 years and he hasn't attempted since. he seems genuinely happy, he still deals with some depression but it's way better than before.

I guess to me they all sort of sound the same. That's probably incorrect, but I have difficulty perceiving a difference between the levels of partial/full hospitalization, especially because my school schedule definitely does not allow for IOP.

you mention that you don't want to drop out, could you just take a semester off? at my college it was somewhat common for people to take a semester off or even a year off because they just needed a break from school, they were taking care of a family member, they were traveling, they had an internship or job, etc. so when my friend took a semester off, nobody knew that he was suicidal or anything like that. he came back next semester with no issues. a couple people asked him what he was up during that semester off so he just came up with a lie. he was worried about how people would react but it ended up being no big deal.

you mentioned that your current bout of ideation has lasted two months, is it possible to give yourself some more time to try to improve things before making a decision? i know it doesn't feel this way right now, but sometimes this is a transient depressive episode, and often things can feel better with treatment. for me personally i feel that two months is not long enough to be certain, especially because it is a permanent and irreversible decision, and you are young. but of course your bodily autonomy is respected here at sasu no matter what. wishing you the best

I'm just so tired. Two months is really so much longer than it's ever lasted for me. I am so miserable and so sad and so tired every day and I have no hope for my future prospects. It just seems like drawing it out for no purpose.

 

[enso]

I don't want to blame other people for my internal problems, but a therapist I had fucked me up quite badly. She asked me if it made me feel better when I got attention for being depressed/suicidal, and if I liked being depressed because I wasn't working to fix my mental health (i.e. doing the exercises). I had therapy sessions with her once a week for a year that sent me into horrible depressive episodes until I finally worked up the courage to quit. When I am planning out my suicide note, I find that I want everybody in my life to know that they have no responsibility for my actions and not to feel guilty, except for her, who is truly the only person in my entire life who I blame at all for my depression.

I am of course aware that the majority of therapists are not like this, but I have very strong negative associations with therapists because of her. I did try going to one more therapist after her for a few months, but I found that I was entirely unable to open up because I was so scared that they would say the same things to me. Which they probably could have helped me work through, but a bit of an ironic catch 22--I couldn't talk to the therapist about not being able to talk to them.

Thanks for your answer!

When it comes to such experience, it is not surprising that you don't want to go to therapist again, that's really understandable. What about other format? For example, maybe you have possibility to make online appointment with a therapist? You will have your own personal space and it can be much easier to quit if you don't like something.

By the way, some time has passed since your initial post, how do you feel right now? Maybe you got some other thoughts about your situation? How do you see it right now?

 

[lampshade321]

Thanks for your answer!

When it comes to such experience, it is not surprising that you don't want to go to therapist again, that's really understandable. What about other format? For example, maybe you have possibility to make online appointment with a therapist? You will have your own personal space and it can be much easier to quit if you don't like something.

By the way, some time has passed since your initial post, how do you feel right now? Maybe you got some other thoughts about your situation? How do you see it right now?

I am considering the merits of going to my college's mental health services. I don't think a virtual therapist would be a significant improvement for me; it's the same sort of experience and I would be more comfortable in-person. I used the college's services in the past (the therapist I saw briefly for a few months) but it didn't do much. I'm considering trying some more meds. I do have a prescription of Wellbutrin I never ended up taking and am considering trying to start it haha but I know that's a bad idea without a psychiatrist's supervision. Just kinda at the end of my rope.

When I made my post, I was pretty convinced that I hated college and didn't want to go back etc. etc. Now that I am here, I've remembered that I actually really like learning and I really like the subjects that I'm taking for my major. Unfortunately, this hasn't actually made me feel any better. My schedule is basically wake up, go to classes, grab meals, and then in the rest of my time lay in bed or sit in a chair and scroll SaSu or other suicide forums. Or cry a lot while scrolling regular social media. I know that's not helping. I just feel so incredibly shitty every single day, and there's literally nothing wrong in my life.

I've been making a lot of progress on CTB. Ordered my SN, arriving in a week. Got my testing kit. Working on getting meto. It's kinda weird because I actually don't really want to die? I really love lots of things about life. But I am so miserable that I don't see any other way for my suffering to end. Have considered making a half-hearted attempt or taking SN and then calling 911, and being okay if I die and okay if I live and leaving it up to chance. But a) then for SURE I'd be hospitalized, and b) I feel like it would fulfill everything my therapist said to me and prove her right and I just want people to understand exactly how awful it is for me to be alive. Which I feel like I can only do by dying. I feel like I definitely cannot just say to someone "I have obtained lethal methods and am going to kill myself if you don't stop me" because it feels like a plea for attention. And I'm afraid I won't be taken seriously.

I KNOW that's irrational. I just can't let go of the thought.