People ending their lives?

I’ll be 74 next month. I’ll just give up now.

🙄

Suicide numbers have not increased. It may be the case that people are more willing to discuss suicide, which can only be a good thing. It is not something to be spoken if in hushed voices and most of us will probably have suicidal feelings at some point, even if we don't act upon them.

Of course it's not an "unforgivable" act - it's entirely understandable and one would hope that we could all learn to be far less judgemental.

The problem with suicide prevention is that it focuses almost exclusively on preventing access to options that would allow suffering people to choose a humane death, but does fuck all to alleviate their suffering or address why their life is so unbearable as to be unliveable.

So people are forced into terrible barbaric methods that could in some cases harm others.

Ethical suicide prevention would be focused on reducing the pain and prolonged suffering that leads to suicide. Not just blocking all the exits and driving people into such a state of desperation they die alone in terrible ways.

Or sectioning people and inflicting so much additional trauma on them that they will at best never recover, at worst end their life the first chance they get.

Ethics are largely missing from our response to suicide prevention.

As a side note, I think it's the height of selfishness to expect someone to live in unbearable pain and distress for decades just to save you grieving.

Please tell me you don't work in mental healthcare?

Many, many people have no services because they ask and beg and reach out and there is nothing there except for a crisis line telling you to make a cup of tea or call Samaritans.

Many, many people have 'care' which is so appalling it is actively abusive.

I am so sorry for everyone else on this thread who has been affected by suicide 💐 my heart breaks for you all.

Regardless of whether suicides are increasing or not, what is clear to me is the painful impact of each and every one.

But as much as I was devastated by my friend’s death, I don’t think he was selfish for it. He was in pain, and couldn’t find any other way out of it (even having undergone suicide prevention training as part of his job). I wish he could have found a way, I wish he’d asked for help from anyone, and I still miss him, but I don’t blame him. Depression and other mental health issues are just insidious and difficult to treat, especially since they often make it hard to seek help in the first place.

I agree with PPs, Coroners spared family feelings by returning 'open' or accidental death verdicts. Families didn't want the stigma.

It took years for me to realise that a childhood friend who'd had an 'accidental death' at 17 was actually suicide.

Strangely I was just talking about how it seems like there's definitely less suicide around now compared to when I was growing up, and yet much worse mental health now.

My extended family (great grandparents, great aunts etc) had quite a few suicides in the 20th century, but none since then.

Yes mental health services are shite, they don't work for the majority of people & honestly there's a real need for more targeted support which isn't over managed & focussed on moving people on like a conveyor belt.
*From someone who has been trying to get a family member some help for years

I've lost someone to this which was devastating. After many years I now have come to terms with it, and I actually think if you want to do it it should be your choice. Why should you have to be miserable each day. I appreciate the saying it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but I don't think this is always accurate as some people suffer from depression and bad luck and there doesn't ever seem to be a light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel

Peak years for suicide in this country were 1905 and 1934 so to say that it's about modern weakness etc is plain wrong.

We were getting increasingly good at suicide prevention in the UK but it's stalled a bit in recent years. My dh took his own life 6 years ago (can't believe it's that long). Services were noticeably threadbare compared to the most recent crisus before that, and I do believe it makes a difference. But there are some good services out there, and there's even a local crisis centre now which might have allowed him to survive.

Suicide is awful. So destructive. I would like to see child and adult MH services prioritised by a new government.

Have you spoken to SOBS (survivors of bereavement by suicide), they’re great

My ex died by suicide relatively recently. The guilt, pain and confusion will never leave me. My children’s lives came to a standstill, they were traumatised and their lives will never be what they would have been.

I swing between anger and sadness, between thinking he was completely selfish to my heart breaking for his pain. There is very little support for the people left behind.

It’s more talked about/known I think.

On a personal note, I remember after a serious attempt I had a spell in ICU then a hospital.
Family told people I was in rehab for drinking (I was 20 and I don’t drink).

Financial pressures and strain on mental health services has an impact too.
Personally though I see a lot of funds being raised for mental health charities, especially in my local area & there are good resources. A MIND centre open most hours every day. Professionally, those that need crisis team & immediate interventions get them also. Again, this could be just locally, I do see that elsewhere in the UK are under pressure.

I agree, there is a general move towards an external locus of control. We need a trigger warning because the thread title isn’t clear enough, I eat shite and am unhappy with myself but that’s because of advertising, I’ve been sacked / failed my exams and it’s the fault of my teachers / employers.

Realising how much control we have over our lives is incredibly empowering.

For the most part I forgive them. The impact they had on innocent strangers is the part I struggle with. It came to light after they'd died, that they had both been planning their deaths for months. They'd gotten their financial affairs in order. The one who left a note (which had been written weeks before) did have diagnosed MH issues. They were both functioning in their lives well enough to fool colleagues and family that they were fine, whilst planning their own deaths. So it's hard to accept that they both planned to do it in such a way, that innocent people were endangered and potentially had their lives ruined. It was premeditated, if you will. You'd think if you were planning it, you'd at least have the decency not to endanger or seriously traumatise others.

My dad took his own life 16 years ago. He walked into the doctors told them he wanted to die and they told him he was fine. He had been mentally unwell for years and in and out of hospital for years, so was known to this doctor. He pleaded for help and they turned him away. Yes 16 years ago but I don’t think much has changed in that time. I am still so angry that a man can walk into a surgery and ask for help on the same day he ended up taking his own life! Yes it was his choice but if the doctor acted differently he might still be here, or would it always of ended this way with or without that help that day? Unfortunately we will never know

I don't see it as selfishness at all. I think suicidal people are not in their right mind and can't make rational decisions. They're not able to consider their loved ones' feelings in that state.

I knew this would be triggering for me upon reading the title, but couldn't stop myself from opening this thread.
I've been affected by 3 suicides.
My grandmother - I cannot tell you how much I adored her, I was in love with her and we were so, so close - took her life when I was 14. The pain I've felt ever since is indescribable and I'm late 40s now, it still hasn't gone. She was only in her 50s. I couldn't, as a child, understand why she'd chosen to do it, and I still can't understand now. I've never been given any explanation for it as it's not talked about in my family.
My stepfather - he took his life when I was a child and my sibling was a baby. There was no warning, no sign. It was sudden, over and done with in 2 minutes, and it single handedly ruined the rest of our childhoods. It destroyed my mother's emotional and mental health. It plunged us as a family in to economic hardship from which my mum has never recovered. I would say it's actually probably ruined the rest of my sibling's life because he's never been able to mentally recover from it.
And my mum's best friend, who I was close to, took her own life with a 3 year old daughter. She had severe post natal depression. Needless to say, her daughter has grown up devastated.
I think what I've learned is that suicide causes lifelong intense grieving and guilt for loved ones.
I spend most days wondering how all those 3 loved ones would be today if they'd lived and got through what they were feeling at the time. If they could look back and say "I went through a really dark time then, but I'm so glad I got through it".
Might be because of my personal experience, but I think suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness; I believe that at that time, how they are feeling is all consuming and they can think of nothing else.

Ah that’s ok then 🙄 Thanks!

Mental help support has got worse. I went to the GP with depression in 1990 and I was referred to a psychiatrist straight away. In 2014 I went through a traumatic experience and was told to go online and do a 6 session cbt course for anxiety. It didn't help because my problems were deeper than that. I kept going back to my gp who said all she could offer were the local services which consisted of various 6 session courses, none of which were appropriate for me. Basically the only way I could actually speak to someone about my problems would be to pay to see a psychologist myself, which I cannot afford. Eventually, my GP got fed up with me and gave me antidepressants which I've been on for the past ten years. There's no 'proper' help unless you can afford it.

I think life is pretty tough for a lot of people at the moment. Financial inequality is increasing, which drives an increase in criminal behaviour. Society is less cohesive and there’s a real feeling of everyone for themselves. The world situation feel unstable to me, with wars and interference in politics from Russia and (what feels like) a failure of western powers such as the US.

There’s also the internet, with all its available information. One reason suicides can increase is because people attempting it often don’t know how. Now they can find out.

And mental health services are on the floor, along with the rest of the NHS. No wonder people are in despair and don’t know where to go for the help they desperately need.

The arrival of the internet (and perhaps next AI) might be a significant destabilizing factor. There was social upheaval following the introduction of mass printing, for example. Change is rarely easy and everything is still in flux. I hope the world situation begins to stabilize and we can return to steadier times, but I can absolutely see why suicide would be rising.

It happened. People didn't talk about it because it was so embarrassing, shocking and people would be unkind about mental illness so you kept quiet. The social stigma in the past was on another level.

Why would you be in a care home at 75 you?! If you are in good health and look after yourself as you age you should still be shimmying around in zumba classes at that age and doing U3A. (Apologies if there's a health reason you can't do this).

This.

A lot of frustration at NHS MH services is that is it not a magic fix. There is no instant fix for MH issues. They all take work, and they take a lot of work from the person with the issues.

I knew someone who used to slag off the local MH trust all the time as they would not "help" him. He was offered all sorts of help.. he just would not do it.
It is like refusing to do physio after an injury.

Whilst I agree with your view, I'm hoping to get to over 80!
We need a Dignity in Death law and procedure asap.