We need to get better at talking about suicide

It’s not an easy thing to hear that your friend or loved one may feel like they don’t want to live. But it is not an easy thing to feel, either

Perhaps if it was socially acceptable to voice how we really feel without the fear of social reprisals then there would be more support and help when it is needed most (iStock)

“Suicide is selfish,” said my teacher.

“It leaves behind the grief and trauma for those who loved you the most. It’s the cowards way out.”

As a 10-year-old with no real understanding of suicide or its causes, this became an idea I internalised: suicide is selfish and an easy escape.

In hindsight, I imagine my teacher was speaking from a place of anger and hurt. That is one of the repercussions of suicide after all, the unleashing of demons for a whole host of people: guilt that they didn’t foresee it, that they couldn’t dissuade you, that they weren’t’ there.

But of course it’s not as simple as that. Not that I don’t appreciate the unintended consequences of suicide. I can’t imagine the pain of losing a loved one that way. Rather, I doubt their lack of consideration of the pain that leads to the act itself.

As a child, suicide seemed a distant, dark concept, deeply troubling for those who would experience it. But I never dreamt I would be one of those people.

Passive suicidal ideation – the state of wishing you were dead or that you could die, but not actually intending to commit suicide – is a term I only learnt recently. Since then I cannot help but relate to it entirely.

“I want to kill myself” written down in front of me sounds dramatic, attention-seeking even, a desperate plea for help. But to me, it looks real, and possible.

If a friend of mine had said this to me a year ago, I would have been so concerned, worried, disconcerted as to how they had reached this point. What had happened to trigger this? I’d probably ask.

It feels strange now that I think this every day, a thought so recurrent that it is now banal.

I was the beneficiary of a very privileged upbringing with every opportunity at my disposal, but I was always troubled by a fear of not being normal. I always felt everybody else seemed to do things I struggled with so effortlessly; feats that felt impossible to me came naturally to them.

I would lay awake late at night tormented by my own thoughts, unable to switch off or escape, until I would have to wake up for school. I called it insomnia at the time – I don’t think I even knew what anxiety was.

I was exhausted and performed poorly during the day, unable to appear attentive or even engage with people. I would not pay to attention to what happened right in front of me, instead becoming fixated on my own mind, creating and living in an alternative universe; here, I was at peace.

Sleeping problems plagued me though my teens, and I convinced myself it was the rigid and confined nature of the school system that stilted my happiness.

People were different at university, I was told, and once I’d arrived there I would be at ease.

But whilst university provided fond memories, happiness never came. I felt a pressure to feel happy when I thought I ought to be. It’s hard to come to the realisation that the problem may be you, because how do you escape yourself?

I was convinced my anxiety would wane when I moved on to pursue my dream career. I would finally be happy, I thought, having assured myself that the obstacles in my path lay in circumstance.

Free of circumstance, free of limitations, I am left alone with nothing but my thoughts and nothing to distract them.

Now when presented with a stressful situation, rather than trying to ease my mind and figure out a solution I turn to what seems to be the easiest one: passive suicidal ideation.

In my head it is all I can think of; it is even a comfort of sorts. Every mistake I make, every regret I have, the solution seems to be the same.

Crossing the road has never been my strong point, but now, I stride confidently next to the red London buses and walk a little slower. All this does is make a poor bus driver’s life a little more annoying, while giving me the false notion that I have an inch of control over my life because in every other aspect that feeling is so remote.

It’s a tale as old as time. We grasp for any semblance of control when we feel we lack it in every other aspect of our lives. The thing is, even the word “grasp” feels and sounds active and energised – and that is the polar opposite of what I am.

After 23 years I think the realisation has finally hit. I may never be happy, but maybe that’s because my ideal of happiness is impossible to attain.

I am fortunate in that I am anchored by the fact that I won’t do it; the waiting list for therapy is long, but I am hopeful that in it may lie a solution.

One day I hope to be rid entirely of these thoughts, but perhaps therein lies the problem – discourse regarding suicide is absolutist in a way; it goes from no mention of the topic to the act itself, a hasty approach to such a nuanced and complex issue. Perhaps better, I want the thoughts to lessen, little by little. I want to want to live.

Being suicidal is stigmatised as a dramatic and tragic phenomenon. For that reason, public discourse surrounding it assumes similar undertones, but in doing so perhaps suppresses the space for honest open conversations to be had.

Perhaps if it was socially acceptable to voice how we really feel without the fear of social reprisals then there would be more support and help when it is needed most.

It isn’t asking a friend to find a resolution, rather, to just listen and be there. It’s breaking down the stigma on a topic that is riven with extremities and little exploration of the thoughts in and of themselves.

Granted, it’s not an easy thing to hear that your friend or loved one may feel like they don’t want to live – it is not an easy thing to feel, either.

But the idea that someone else might just understand, can make all the difference.

My thoughts are not static; for that reason I have hope.

If you have been affected by the issues in this article, you can contact the following organisations for support:

mind.org.uk

mentalhealth.org.uk

samaritans.org

nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth