Finding Yourself in an Impossible Situation

There might come a time when you are faced with an impossible situation, a friend or family member tells you that they are suicidal. Even worse is a situation that I have encountered in my life–a friend, knowing my history, asked me to help them commit suicide. What do you do?

When a person says that they are suicidal take it seriously. Suicide is a serious and what it takes to let your thoughts go down to the darkest places is something that warrants knowing what to do in these situations.

The first thing you can do is to tell that person that it will be okay, that people all over the world have gotten to a place where they believe that suicide is the only answer. Let them know that there are resources right away, and the biggest is the suicide hotline:

The National Suicide Hotline. 1-800-273-8255

If you are outside the United States you can look up international suicide hotlines that can help someone you love. These places are designed to help people who are in emergency situations—I consider suicidal thoughts as one of those emergency situations.

Asking the Right Questions

It is essential to find out the level of suicide your loved one is and if he/she is in a place where they will act on their suicidal feelings. Suicidal thoughts and feelings can quickly move into suicidal action, though you might not be a professional you can ask questions to determine where he/she is at the moment. The following I took from Mayo Clinic Website with questions you should ask:

• • How are you coping with what’s been happening in your life?
• • Do you ever feel like just giving up?
• • Are you thinking about dying?
• • Are you thinking about hurting yourself?
• • Do you think about suicide?
• • Have you ever thought about suicide before, or tried to harm yourself before?
• • Have you thought about how or when you’d do it?
• • Do you have access to weapons or things that can be used as weapons to harm yourself?

Looking for Warning signs

There are plenty of warning signs that your family member or friend might act on their suicidal thoughts. When someone is talking about suicide saying things like “I want to die” or “I wish I hadn’t been born” are signs that things are bad. A preoccupation with death or suicide is another indicator that I had in my own life. There are many signs, and I implore that you research the critical signs of suicide if you believe a loved one is planning to commit suicide.

Asking them to Seek Help

This where things can get tricky. The first thing I recommend is to ask your family member or friend to seek professional help (this is tricky because seeking help on your own is often impossible.) But, you have to be able to make the hard choice—if he/she is suicidal, you have to call 9-1-1 or immediately take them to the hospital. It is better to be safe than sorry. Your friend or family member may hate you, I know I did when my family called the authorities on me a number of times, but if its life or death– chose life.

Always Keep Fighting

James

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My Weekly Wrap up 10/23 – 10-29

This week was shorter since I made the decision to only write four blog posts this week. Unlike other weeks since this blogs inception, my posts have been getting longer and more into what will go into my memoir “The Bipolar Writer.”

To all my followers that have given me amazing feedback on my blog I thank-you, it has really given me the confidence in who I am as a writer. I think in the coming weeks I will consider asking people to share their own stories with me. I had a great idea for a book, a compilation of others like me with mental illnesses and their stories. I wouldn’t mind feedback on this and if you think it could be a reality. This project would be separate from my memoir, but if anyone is interested I will link my personal email at the end of this post.

What did we discuss this week?

` To me, the biggest post was my thoughts on a very important subject in my own life—suicide. It was perhaps one of the hardest posts to write, I have written one other post about suicide but from the position of how suicide affects families, so I took my time when writing this suicide piece. I shared my own experiences and then shared my thoughts on the subject. The piece that I wrote this week is going into my memoir, and I will further expand on it. I don’t normally free write a blog like I did (I usually outline it first) but it seemed worked out and I have gotten good feedback. If you haven’t read the piece, please do it really is a personal piece.

My Second Honest post was just me expressing my thoughts about things that were bothering me in the past few weeks, and especially about my friend who to this minute has not even contacted me to tell me she is alright. I have to ask her brother. All the feedback that I got is pushing me to just let it go for now, and it is what I decided to do. Hopefully one day I can repair the damage. I also touched somewhat on my depression cycles and breaking down when I last saw my therapist. It’s a good piece because it shows that even though things are going great in my life, my depression—mygreatestt companion—will always be there, but at least I know I can fight it.

One of the more interesting posts this week came in How the Change of Season Affects my Depression because this post was all about timing as we move from fall to winter months. My diagnosis of Bipolar One has always had a seasonal component because my depression is at its worse time of year, but I also talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I can trace some of the worst times to the period of November to at times to April and March. I tried to commit suicide for the first time Thanksgiving weekend 2007 and New Years 2008. One thing that developed this week was that for the first time since identifying that I am once again in a depression cycle that I stayed in bed yesterday way past when I woke up. I had been trying to make it habit to get out of bed right away like today. I will have to monitor this because it gets easier the more I stay in bed, and before long it will be every day.

If you haven’t read my blog post Sleep Hygiene – Top Ten Tips you really should.

What to expect in the coming weeks?

I have a huge list of topics to write about this week so it is possible that some subjects are going to be left for blog posts beyond this week. I am starting a new semester (I am almost done with my BA in creative writing with a specialization in fiction) so I may write 4-5 posts this week. I want to start posting some scenes from my screenplay Memory of Shane to get feedback. I think this week will be a great mixture of scenes and subjects like my experiences with medicine or more CBT information. I know I will be working on my social anxiety with my therapist so I can share my thoughts before and after. I will write as much as possible, as I also plan on writing at least five first draft chapters in my memoir this week.

J.E. Skye

jamesedgarskye24@gmail.com

Photo Credit: ​Thought Catalog