PAIN? Loneliness? Rejection? Abuse? Deep sadness? Guilt? Depression? Helplessness?More than anything, I believe people who commit suicide feel hopeless. They are hurting so badly and want the pain to end, but they can’t imagine it ever going away.

They can’t see the light at the end of a very dark, lonely tunnel.

Have you ever felt this way?

When a person’s thoughts get so negative about their circumstances, or even about themselves, they can’t find a reason to live. They think their problems are unsolvable and they feel completely out of control.

I believe, first and foremost, that hopelessness is a serious spiritual problem rooted in lies and incorrect logic. Anytime you believe lies about yourself, you’re listening to the wrong voices.

THE STIGMA OF SUICIDE WITHIN US
We can heal from our injuries and our suffering; if we have a healthy environment, healthy behaviours, healthy relationships, we will recover. We need to identify our histories of trauma, abuse, grief, neglect, and loss. We need to overcome denial on all of our addictive behaviours. We need to provide ourselves with good health care. We need a safe place where we can be who we are and be welcome.
We need quiet, respectful attention as we tell our stories in as much detail and as many times as we need to.

Social stigma and prejudice are our enemies. Every human being is taught from childhood that suicidal people are shameful, sinful, weak, selfish, and manipulative; taught that we are contagious, and that we want to harm others.

None of these ideas is true. No scientific study has ever confirmed that a significant proportion of suicidal people have these qualities. But children believe what they are taught. Each person we seek help from has been conditioned to respond with fear, contempt, and aversion. Worse yet, when we became suicidal, we apply these ideas to ourselves.

Much of the content of depressive rumination:- I’m no good, I’m stupid, I’m a failure, I’m weak, I don’t have enough will power, is simply the reflexive response of internalized stigma. Stigma causes us to inflict pain upon ourselves, and deters us from seeking help. It causes those around us to shun us, to be afraid to talk with us, to abuse us.

While thousands of years of social oppression are an enemy, our allies include millions of years of biological programming. We are born with the desire to stay alive. It is the most basic thing about us; we share it with all living beings.

At each moment, millions of events designed to help us stay alive take place inside our bodies and inside our minds. Until the present, at least, the forces that are life-preserving have been stronger than the forces that are life-destroying. Many of us endured bleak periods during which inner voices cried out, “Kill yourself! Your life is nothing but pain and misery. You might as well end it all!” Yet we did not die.

The desire for life is pre-conscious, pre-verbal. It keeps us going even when the voices tell us to die.

We must be, at bottom, fundamentally healthy, or we would not have stayed alive this long. Like all living creatures, we can heal from our injuries and our suffering if we have a healthy environment, healthy behaviours, and healthy relationships.

We need to identify our histories of trauma, abuse, neglect, grief, and loss. We need to overcome denial on all of our addictive behaviours. We need to provide ourselves with good health care. We need a safe place where we can be who we are and be welcome. We need quiet, respectful attention as we tell our stories in as much detail and as many times as we need to.

If we get these things, we will not just stay alive, but we will have good lives; lives that are free of the curse of depression and suicidal ideation; lives that are productive and creative; lives that are filled with friendship and love.

Pandit Suresh Sugrim