Content warning: Article discusses suicide.
Being suicidal isn't just trying to kill yourself.
Being suicidal is driving down the road and thinking about "what if I hit that tree, would I be out of my misery then?" Or it's the constant ways you think of how you could end all the pain. Pills, a gun, a knife, or even walking out onto a busy highway to get hit by a car.
No, that doesn't mean someone needs to hide pills, guns, or knives from you because it's NORMAL when you have depression.
No, just because you are fantasizing about doing it doesn't mean you will.
It doesn't mean you need to be admitted into a mental institution.
Being suicidal doesn't make anyone a freak show or any less of a person. If anything, it makes them more human than most.
Struggling mentally with how you're going to get to the next day is normal. You just have to kick those demons' ass! Be stronger than those demons — even by a milliliter.
But what being suicidal does mean is that you need to own it, even if you don't tell anyone. Don't convince yourself that you're okay when you're not. If you do that, you are only making it harder upon oneself. It means even if you don't tell your family, friends, best friend, or even husband that you know you are not okay. It's okay to want to seek help, it's okay to not want to seek help. It's okay. Just know your limits. If you feel like you may act on and still don't want to get help, call the National Suicide Hotline. Even when your not able to love yourself give someone else the chance to do it for you by calling the National Suicide Hotline.
I know that by the time most people get to the point of acting on it, they don't want help. They just want all the pain and suffering they are feeling to end. That's when you need to seek help. Being suicidal is a lot like wanting to knock the fire out of that annoying co-worker — eventually, that feeling fades. That's being suicidal. Suicidal is when that feeling doesn't ever go away, the need and want so bad to kill yourself, that's when you need to seek help the most. That's the difference in being suicidal and when you are suicidal is when you cannot get out from under it, it never leaves.
For those of you that have never had to go through this, I pray that you never will. And for those of you that are currently going through this or have gone through it, as cliché as it sounds it DOES get better. The light is not at the end of the tunnel it is right around the corner
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline — 1-800-273-8255
