This is an extremely touchy subject for a lot of people, especially me and if you know what triggering is.... you probably don't want to read what I'm about to say.
Most all of the women in my family have a problem with mental health. This started coming out though around the time that it was proven they were generally a hereditary defect of imbalanced brain chemicals. I'm only 28 and I can't remember how many people I've known that have wanted to, seriously wanted to, at some time. I got my first taste of suicide when my best friend killed himself at 13. From that time, I've had five people close to me commit suicide. Two of those I found, and another two I had to go in to shortly after when there was still blood everywhere and in one case organ matter. Four people attempt it. One of my friends missed his shot and blew a quarter of his face off and lost part of his brain, but he had reconstructive surgery and can still function mostly well. The other wasn't so lucky and she's been in one of those cases that was discussed. A comatose vegetable hooked up to machines and tubes, keeping her alive. This isn't counting all those friends of friends, or someone you know from school but didn't really talk to.
My mom tried to kill herself when I was 16 by ODing on pills. Before that, she had always been telling me how she wanted to die, and would sort of use it as a threat or insult when we were arguing. She continued to do this after her first attempt up until I was 23, when I found out I was pregnant. After that, she got a little better, but she'll still go off on a tangent every once in awhile. One of the reasons she 'hadn't tried it again was because of how bad [she] felt after the failed attempt.' I got so fed up with it, because it was being used as a control tactic, that it got to the point where I told her how to do it without the possibility of failure and without any pain. I told her I'd even get her the pills.
I know how coarse this is coming across but at some point, I got so completely desensitized to suicide and death in general. Also because of this, I made a conscious decision that no matter how bad I ever got to feeling, I'd
never put my family and friends through that torture. That didn't stop me however from carving my body up, getting burned on 'accident' for years, developing a extremely distorted body image, or (like someone mentioned) idly thinking about my own death which at some point, did cross a line.
Before that though going back to some of the 'signs', a person who does not want to be helped is a master at hiding things. My self injury and anorexia-bulimia went on from around the time I was fourteen until I was 22, when I found out I was pregnant. After I had my daughter I went through a pretty bad period thanks to undiagnosed postpartum. The fact that I did almost die delivering her didn't help any. They couldn't tell me what happened and I got two wildly contradicting 'best guesses' of I had a small pulmonary embolism or I lost too much blood and either of those caused me to go in to cardiac arrest. Regardless of what happened though, the moment I knew something was wrong with me, I went through all five stages of death in a matter of minutes. And I'm pretty sure that any person who has come close to dying before that just reaching the acceptance of your own death is insane and usually carries over. Your not as scared of it anymore, even though it is a miracle you're still alive.
But yeah, it was a few months after I delivered when I was driving down the road, and wondered what would happen if I just took my hands off the wheel and let my car crash in to an already damaged guard post that was on a huge, rocky hill. At the time, I didn't see this as actively attempting suicide, but I was leaving my life to chance and statistics. A couple of hours later, and I knew that this ultimately was me wanting to take my life and I needed help.
The one thing I disagree with a lot of people here on is when someone should go seek professional help. There is a very thin grey line between when you're worrying if you should or not, and when you decide it is better not to because you know they will try to stop you, fix you, or send you away... I've not only been to these wonderful facilities to see my mom, but had a 48 hour stay in one when I actually went to get help. Like I said, at that point I wasn't physically hurting myself anymore; I wasn't planning my death but more wondering about it but I knew this was still wrong and I had everything to live for, even if some parts weren't so great. I went to get treatment, and they decided to detain me and send me to a state facility for observation. This scared the piss out of me and made me really not want to ever go back again. Luckily, I sort of had to. It was right before Thanksgiving and they cut my time down from two weeks to two days, under the condition that I go back to outpatient treatment the following Monday. If I didn't the cops could bust down my door and arrest me where I'd be forced in to inpatient for three months with bi-weekly therapy sessions and I got to play pill roulette with which combination of medicines worked for me.
I will be the very first person to say, if you were just mulling over the idea before and you got forced into a state run facility, you will be making your plan when you get out. Private ones do have a better environment, but are extremely expensive and insurance generally only covers a portion if any unless you're a solider, police officer, firemen type of thing. But this leads me back to my point. People generally do not seek help, at all. People who are suicidal and/or depressed internalize a lot. They don't want to be a burden and feel insignificant. If they do go, the more serious cases can be sent away under the Mental Health Act. This frightens people, and probably 85% of the people I talked to said they played sane to get out. There is that period of calm acceptance, where you can look someone in the eye and flat out lie to them because you're so determined. You do have some people who will cooperate and open up, and others who were 'playing sane' do eventually open up as well after a few sessions if you have a therapist/psychologist who is caring enough that you connect with.
Even though it shouldn't be, it is really up to friends and family to get you to try to go. They're close to you and can see changes in your behavior that you might not see yourself because you are so used to feeling this way. They're also the people who the person would feel most comfortable talking to. Depending on the state you live in, if you know someone is very serious but they won't get help... two direct family members, or one direct family member and two friends can have them involuntarily committed. This isn't something I would recommend doing unless they're getting their 'affairs in order'.
As to whether a professional helps... from my own and other people's close to me experiences, I would say if done correctly it can help a great deal. Like I myself and someone else pointed out, if you're seriously thinking about suicide... then you don't have much inner strength to rely on. My biggest issue was in me not having someone I knew come in and find me. If it happened by some outside force though, it wasn't suicide. I didn't even think about the fact that this still boiled me to attempt to die by putting myself in a situation where it could happen. You end up second guessing yourself a lot, which makes things worse. Family and friends can be HUGE support but if deep down you don't want help or feel like you'd be placing your burdens on them, you probably aren't going to turn to them.
After my first attempt to get help landed me in a hospital, I was scared. I was released early on some contingencies but I had bad providers. As soon as my three months were up, I stopped going and no one called to check on me when I missed appointments. They didn't call me to see why I stopped picking up my meds from them. So, my eating disorders and SI did eventually kick back up and it was my husband who noticed the changes and asked me outright. I didn't want to lie to him, and I told him what was going on. This time, there wasn't any thought about me dying, but I was still taking things out on myself that I had no control over. He took me to another state run doctor/therapy place, and they were TOTALLY different. Their attitudes, the way they handled things... I think the most important thing when seeking professional help is that you have a comprehensive team. A real doctor with a PhD in Psy handled my meds and any changes. If I didn't need to see him, I dealt with one of two nurses in a place that employed 40 different nurses, who just asked how I was doing with my meds. I had one, set therapist who specialized in depression and self-injury (Just a little note I found weird, eating disorders fall in to the self injury category too.) She was the only therapist I saw. They also had a variety of group therapies (5-10) and small sessions (3-5 people) that focused on different issues. They call a week before and the day before to remind me of appointments. If I miss it, and I don't call back to reschedule in a couple of days an actual person calls me to see what is going on. If they don't get me, they call my husband or my grandmother. If I don't pick up my meds when my refill comes up, they call the next day. It is very easy when you feel better, to think that you're cured. With depression that is purely situational, sometimes this is the case. Since mine was linked to imbalances and hereditary, mine isn't like that and they're NOT going to let me slip or try to forget it. Yes, at times it can be a bitch but I've been going there for over two years now and I know it has been worth it and is what I need.
Then there is my own views on assisted suicide, in which I could go in to an equally long tl;dr thing about but since I think I did do that already with the suicide stuff, I'll save you the trouble and just say this.
My great grandmother lived to be 99. Her body started going when she was around 70. She was a strong, proud woman who tried to brush off a pretty major stroke at Sunday dinner like she was laughing at one of the jokes my uncle made. When she was about 80, her mind had started slipping and she begged us to just let her die if she ever had to be placed on life support, which she did a couple of years later but she didn't have a resuscitation policy in her will and the decision was left up to my Grandmother, who chose to go against her wishes. The year before her death, she couldn't even remember who we were. She couldn't even recall a lot of memories from her past. She didn't get us mixed up like she used to; she did not know who we were and it was heartbreaking for me to hear the woman who was my second mother screaming a stranger was molesting her when I tried to change her out of the pajama bottoms she had messed in.
There are times that I hate the fact that we went ahead and prolonged her life, despite vocally stated wishes to do so. She made this decision when she was still in pretty good control over her mental capacities. I feel like we all made a horribly selfish decision because we held out home that things would get better. Then I feel mortified by the fact that I'd even let myself think it would have been better if we didn't go through with it. She was still alive. She got to see her other great grandkids grow up.
A couple of weeks before she died, it was like the fog that was hanging over her for years lifted. She remembered us again. She had better control of her body. She knew from that point on what was going on, even though we had a lot of catching up to do with her. I got to tell her I was pregnant and the look of happiness on her face still brings me to tears because I was told that I had a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting pregnant, let alone being able to carry past the first trimester. Three days later, I went and had my first appointment and had an ultrasound done. She got to see a little tiny alien thing with nubs for arms and legs. She couldn't see the DVD, but she got to hear her heartbeat. Literally, the next morning, she died in her sleep.
We only had her back for a very short time, but those two weeks made her being 'lost' for all those years worth it.
.... I'm going to go get a pint of cookie dough and pig out now
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