Discussion Why do some mentally ill people attempt suicide and others don't?

[ericwilkinson]

This is something very interesting. I know people can be suicidal without mental illness/distress but it's a large cause. The thing is, though a lot of suicides are caused by mental illness, the vast majority of mentally ill people don't attempt. It said that 70% of people with depression have taken psychiatric drugs but only 5-7% will end their lives.

What is the psychology of this?

 

[tuto170]

No idea, I have paranoid schizophrenia and my medication causes serious side effects and I have a lot of negative symptoms like anhedomia (I stay in bed almost whole day and sleep for 16 hours) I dont enjoy video games anymore or reading, I have poverty of speech and I have flat mood on medication, so I cant pleasure satisfaction anymore. because lack of social skills due my illness and medication I am considering suicide.
Looking at the past when my grandmother had clinical depression, she attempted few foolish suicide attempts like drowning herself, but the medication makes mentally people so idle and unable to do anything (like sleeping all day, unable to leave the house) even difficult killing oneself. MEDICATION is the answer, it makes mentally ill people feel flat or too exhausted to buy or think of suicide methods, I am lucky of the few who besides sleeping 16hrs a day can make an attempt on the remaining hours.

 

[Shamana]

We all have different capacities to endure whatever we are struggling with. Some people commit suicide because they have lost their job or gone through a divorce or something similar. That is something that I cannot relate to at all. I can only really relate to suicidal ideation caused by chronic and remitting mental and or somatic illness and having exhausted most options.

There is also the whole thing about enviroment and support. For me social relations are so important. Some people have a shitty family and few if any good friends. I think it's far more easy to commit suicide if you feel completele alone with your problems. Then of course there is also the whole religious aspect. In my POV it seems far more rational to commit suicide if you are atheist because if your heading to nothingness anyway why endure all the pain and stress?

If your religious and believe in the afterlife up comes the whole questions of heaven/hell and rebirth/reincarnation.

 

[TimeToDie]

A lot of those "mentally ill" people are not suffering all that much, at least not much compared to what is typically seen on this forum. They might be on an SSRI (or other AD) because they feel a bit down, but they are still highly functional and there mental issues present such a minor impairment that nobody would ever even notice that they have any mental disorder. I knew a woman, for example, who was quite successful as an EMT and she was highly intelligent and wanted to go to med school. This was in addition to being relatively young and fit and rather attractive as well. If she hadn't told me how much she loved the 450 mg of Wellbutrin she was on I would never have guessed that she suffered from depression. Compare that to me: I can't function at all, which is on par with some others on this forum. I lay in bed (not sleeping due to extreme insomnia) then I get up to get food and then I waste time reading about & thinking about my impending death.

 

[Subhuman]

Because suicide is not exclusively about mental illness, it's more about pain and being willing/capable to withstand it.

You can be mentally ill but still think life is worth living and still find joy in a lot of things. You can be perfectly sane but choose to end your life due to reasons that have nothing to do with depression, like losing your job, failing you exams, having your reputation ruined, not being able to achieve something that your society deems of paramount importance, etc.