Posted by shortelise on August 29, 2004, at 13:17:21
Recent posts have given me pause.
If we talk about suicidal feelings with friends or family, they tend to panic.
Talking about feeling suicidal doesn't ALWAYS mean you're about to commit suicide. Apparently most people who do kill themselves have talked about suicide beforehand. But all people who talk about suicide do not kill themselves. Most people don't.
And it can help a person so much to talk about these feelings, why they feel this way, what is happening in their lives.
It helps to "explore the issues", even if it is in terms of suicide.
SOmetimes saying "I want to kill myself" is in fact a way of saying "Could you please please listen to me - I am in too much pain".
I know I am stating the obvious.
But here's my point to all of this.
If we panic here, where can a person go to talk about these feelings? If those of us who have these feelings can't express them here, can't ask for help in thinking and feeling through it all, where can we? Could we not just encourage people to talk here, to write here? Just feeling understood can be a reason to live sometimes.
This is of course not including circumstances where immediate intervention is needed.
What do you think?
ShortE
poster:shortelise
thread:383678
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040820/msgs/383678.html