Tina Brescanu's Blog - Posts Tagged "thinking"
Myths about suicide
Talking about suicide is dangerous. It is contagious and will spread
False! Talking about suicide is a preventative action. Don’t wait for someone to say how they feel, they might never, but ask,”are you suicidal? Do you have suicidal thoughts?”
Suicide is not contagious. Ask your children if they have suicidal thoughts, dare to tell them about yours and don’t fear to wake the bear, talking will soothe the bear.
To lack a lust for life is common, even in children, perhaps especially in children today because of the added pressure of being somebody, being oneself is not enough.
Suicidal people are mentally ill
False! I never felt mentally ill when I wanted to die. It’s a myth. I always felt like I wanted to go home hence my saying, 1969 man landed on the moon, and I landed on earth.
Often, the reason we feel suicidal are dismissed as minor, silly or selfish by adults or experts so how can we expect young people to talk to someone?
I’ve been suicidal three times in my life. The first two times I saved my own life, the last time in my frenzied automatic writing of goodbyes to life, my yet to be born children wrote to me. They told me to hang on, to wait for them because we’re from the same place, you’ll recognise us and connect with us with such intensity you want to live forever, but you won’t, and that’s fine. Losing the lust for life is not a crime, it’s not a sin, and it’s not a failure. It’s a chance to start again; this is as you say on earth, third time lucky.
Until then I thought you could only save your own life, but I learnt you can indeed get help from unusual places.
I have experience from psychiatric care growing up in Sweden, and I would not recommend that kind of help. That’s where my sister and I differ, but then she became entrapped in that system. I escaped a diagnosis while she got several.
If someone talks a lot about suicide, they won’t try to kill themselves. It’s a false alarm
False, a lot of people who complete suicide have tried to talk about it, but maybe got “don’t say that we love you, you have so much, be grateful” instead of proper listening. Talking helps the person delay and hopefully change their mind or seek help. Talking about suicide is always a sign that the person needs help. Listen.
Suicidal thoughts are common, especially in the teenage years
Yes, true, but they are also more and more common in children. Of course, people of all ages suffer from suicidal thoughts and existentialist questions and it’s not always depression or mental illness. Perhaps it’s high sensitivity or alienation.
Boys don’t talk about suicide
True and false!
My brother didn’t, but my son did. Most young people don’t talk to adults because adults think they should be lucky to be alive or some other unhelpful sentiment about how one must feel about life. When my son was suicidal at the same age as myself when I was a child, I asked him, and he told me, and just like me when we accessed help together he was told he was highly sensitive, and as such he can lose his footing easier in life. My son was told to enclose himself in a bubble of love which was unhelpful at best.
If young people talk, it’s often to a peer, if they have someone who knows how to listen.
I didn’t talk to anyone. No, that’s not true. I talked to myself. I wrote to myself. The most important conversation we’ll all have in life is the one we have with ourselves. Experts say, talk to someone, get help, but unless the conversation with self takes place, no other person can ever continue the saving. Saying “don’t be so selfish” is not helpful. Making friends with self is more important than making friends with brothers and sisters and anyone else outside of self. Friends with self first is self-love, the foundation for all love. For life.
Suicide is sudden
True, with young people suicidal thoughts can come on suddenly, but it doesn’t have to be mental illness, it can be a societal illness which is different. Deeply depressed people often have no power of action, look out for a person who starts to feel better after a period of deep rest.
Once suicidal always suicidal
False, but at least in my case, I continue to live but on the edge of society, where I’ve always lived. I don’t feel depressed, ill or suicidal, but I feel intensely, and sometimes it’s too much. I need a lot of alone time to cope with life.
Birthdays and other celebrations are not risky times for me because I don’t celebrate anything in a mainstream way.
You can’t stop a suicidal person from completing a suicide
False. It’s possible. But the first hero here is the self. Always.
Going back to when I was in the deepest, darkest place I became my own hero, as did my sister and my brother. We are all sensitives. We all saved ourselves. But I knew people who couldn’t find the hero within, who instead completed suicide. This is why I advocate the conversation with self. You save your own life, and then you ask for help. You are the hero.
Afterwards, I never thought, why did I think like that? That’s trivialising the feelings that lead to suicide, instead, we should ask, how do we access the hero within in situations that overwhelm us, eats us up, tear us apart?
Loving someone who is suicidal is not enough. The suicidal person needs to be able to access self-love from within and become their own hero. Stop expecting suicidal people to live for someone else and help people to live for themselves first because that’s the only relationship that matters when you are so near the end.
False! Talking about suicide is a preventative action. Don’t wait for someone to say how they feel, they might never, but ask,”are you suicidal? Do you have suicidal thoughts?”
Suicide is not contagious. Ask your children if they have suicidal thoughts, dare to tell them about yours and don’t fear to wake the bear, talking will soothe the bear.
To lack a lust for life is common, even in children, perhaps especially in children today because of the added pressure of being somebody, being oneself is not enough.
Suicidal people are mentally ill
False! I never felt mentally ill when I wanted to die. It’s a myth. I always felt like I wanted to go home hence my saying, 1969 man landed on the moon, and I landed on earth.
Often, the reason we feel suicidal are dismissed as minor, silly or selfish by adults or experts so how can we expect young people to talk to someone?
I’ve been suicidal three times in my life. The first two times I saved my own life, the last time in my frenzied automatic writing of goodbyes to life, my yet to be born children wrote to me. They told me to hang on, to wait for them because we’re from the same place, you’ll recognise us and connect with us with such intensity you want to live forever, but you won’t, and that’s fine. Losing the lust for life is not a crime, it’s not a sin, and it’s not a failure. It’s a chance to start again; this is as you say on earth, third time lucky.
Until then I thought you could only save your own life, but I learnt you can indeed get help from unusual places.
I have experience from psychiatric care growing up in Sweden, and I would not recommend that kind of help. That’s where my sister and I differ, but then she became entrapped in that system. I escaped a diagnosis while she got several.
If someone talks a lot about suicide, they won’t try to kill themselves. It’s a false alarm
False, a lot of people who complete suicide have tried to talk about it, but maybe got “don’t say that we love you, you have so much, be grateful” instead of proper listening. Talking helps the person delay and hopefully change their mind or seek help. Talking about suicide is always a sign that the person needs help. Listen.
Suicidal thoughts are common, especially in the teenage years
Yes, true, but they are also more and more common in children. Of course, people of all ages suffer from suicidal thoughts and existentialist questions and it’s not always depression or mental illness. Perhaps it’s high sensitivity or alienation.
Boys don’t talk about suicide
True and false!
My brother didn’t, but my son did. Most young people don’t talk to adults because adults think they should be lucky to be alive or some other unhelpful sentiment about how one must feel about life. When my son was suicidal at the same age as myself when I was a child, I asked him, and he told me, and just like me when we accessed help together he was told he was highly sensitive, and as such he can lose his footing easier in life. My son was told to enclose himself in a bubble of love which was unhelpful at best.
If young people talk, it’s often to a peer, if they have someone who knows how to listen.
I didn’t talk to anyone. No, that’s not true. I talked to myself. I wrote to myself. The most important conversation we’ll all have in life is the one we have with ourselves. Experts say, talk to someone, get help, but unless the conversation with self takes place, no other person can ever continue the saving. Saying “don’t be so selfish” is not helpful. Making friends with self is more important than making friends with brothers and sisters and anyone else outside of self. Friends with self first is self-love, the foundation for all love. For life.
Suicide is sudden
True, with young people suicidal thoughts can come on suddenly, but it doesn’t have to be mental illness, it can be a societal illness which is different. Deeply depressed people often have no power of action, look out for a person who starts to feel better after a period of deep rest.
Once suicidal always suicidal
False, but at least in my case, I continue to live but on the edge of society, where I’ve always lived. I don’t feel depressed, ill or suicidal, but I feel intensely, and sometimes it’s too much. I need a lot of alone time to cope with life.
Birthdays and other celebrations are not risky times for me because I don’t celebrate anything in a mainstream way.
You can’t stop a suicidal person from completing a suicide
False. It’s possible. But the first hero here is the self. Always.
Going back to when I was in the deepest, darkest place I became my own hero, as did my sister and my brother. We are all sensitives. We all saved ourselves. But I knew people who couldn’t find the hero within, who instead completed suicide. This is why I advocate the conversation with self. You save your own life, and then you ask for help. You are the hero.
Afterwards, I never thought, why did I think like that? That’s trivialising the feelings that lead to suicide, instead, we should ask, how do we access the hero within in situations that overwhelm us, eats us up, tear us apart?
Loving someone who is suicidal is not enough. The suicidal person needs to be able to access self-love from within and become their own hero. Stop expecting suicidal people to live for someone else and help people to live for themselves first because that’s the only relationship that matters when you are so near the end.
