Reaching Out Doesn't Mean I'm 'Less' Suicidal

To those of you who have been there and have felt these two opposites at the same time, I hear you I hope this helps you know you are not alone.

To those of you who are lucky enough to have never felt suicidal, who may think feeling these two things at the same time is impossible, who may question how much someone really is suicidal when they show the tiniest sign of wanting help and to get better — this is also for you, to try to help you understand how this feels.

I’ve phoned my mental health team, desperately crying on the phone for help, and have been told because I phoned that means I want help so they aren’t going to do anything.

At my worst repeated incidents of potentially lethal self-harm, I’ve been assessed as “not very high risk” because I always ask for help.

I’ve been in the hospital or with paramedics and have been told, “Well you obviously don’t really want to die because you called for help.” After making an attempt *could* have killed me.

I’ve been escorted from A&E by security guards on the instruction of the mental health team after I pleaded for some help because I couldn’t bear how I felt another day and would try to die again tomorrow. In all these times I have been completely and utterly suicidal — but also desperately wanted help and to get better.

During times of complete despair I feel like there is no hope of ever getting better, or that this feeling will never go away, and that is what leads to suicidal thoughts and behavior. This pain right now is too much and I need it to stop, only to ask for help and get told, no. When this happens, the only other way I can think to make it stop is to do some serious harm to myself. If it works, I’m out of this pain forever. Even if it doesn’t, I get some physical pain to focus on which numbs the emotional torture for a while.

In these moments, if someone said they would try and help me, I wouldn’t have to end up doing this. If there was any hope of help to get to the light at the end of the tunnel, I wouldn’t have attempted suicide.

Mental health services are so stretched and so unhelpful because they are so limited in what they can offer. At these moments I’m describing I really just need help. Help with the level of pain I am feeling in this moment. Help with the raging intrusive thoughts going round in my head, taking over everything and becoming all consuming as if they are the real world and nothing else exists. But the help does not exist. So wanting and needing help so desperately results in me feeling suicidal.

Right now this is a cycle I end up in a lot. As of the moment of me writing this I have just about managed to come out of a bad patch without resulting in self-harm and without any help from mental health services even though I needed it. If you are lucky enough to have never needed mental health services support, you may think asking for help is that simple. It really isn’t. The help just isn’t there.

I am slowly coming to realize that the only way to beat this thing is to find support for myself. If you can relate to any of this, you’re not alone.

Related: We Tell Suicidal People to ‘Get Help.’ But What Happens When They Do?