Share your experiences and thoughts on suicide please.

Suicidal depression is a condition that blinds people to the possibility of hope.  The hope of change is always there, everything changes, but being suicidal removes it from sight.

Hope is still there.  Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  If you feel you cannot fight it, get help!  This is nothing worth killing yourself over.  Really, it isn't!

hugs & smiles
Emelye

I found suicidal thoughts to dog me a lot before I transitioned and those were almost as painful as GID.  I won't go into details but far too much of my waking life was spent contemplating not living.  What kept me from proceeding was the doubt that ending it all would make it better or even more peaceful.  And I couldn't say that I knew that the future would always be as bad as the present.  Life is weird that way. 

If you saw the movie "Castaway" with Tom Hanks, he was on the island in the south pacific all alone and he put aside thoughts of ending it after taking some steps.  Then a bit of a plastic outhouse floated ashore allowing him to make a sail that got him home.  Well, I waited for a sail too and eventually one came.  No matter how bleak it looks, you just can't rule out that a "sail" will come.   Actually, I'm waiting for another sail at the moment.


Maggie

Three attempts and thankfully they all failed.  I am now at a point where things are better than they were went I began transition.

Thanking a clue from Maggie's post, Hanks also said you never know what the tide will bring tomorrow.  It always seem darkest before the dawn.


Janet

Suicide is very tempting sometimes, I have tried 3 times but these days I don't think about it too much as I have hope things might improve. I am having CBT for my anxiety and social phobia and I'm going to post my letter thing tomorrow to the gender identity clinic telling them that I do want the apointment. When I attemted suicide I had no hope, but now I know my life could improve and thats what i'm holding onto at the moment.

I've attempted. Obviously I'm still here.

No, my problems didn't magically disappear. But I've been learning to either solve or deal with my problems more intelligently 

My belief is that this is our challenge, and if we escape it through whatever means it will just be waiting for us in the next life. I've often thought that I would just be born trans again, maybe even in a worse place and time than 21st century america...kind like your situation. Look at it this way though, you have come this far, endured this much, quitting right before it starts getting better doesn't make any sense.

Ok now the standard stuff is said. Lots of us can relate to your feelings, Shelina. I attempted it once, and technically for a few minutes I succeeded. I have learned what I did wrong, and won't make the same mistake again; however after much state-mandated therapy (apparently it's against the law to attempt suicide) I decided to give transition a chance. It's not off the table though, not by a longshot. I know it sounds morbid, but if you decide to do it make sure you do it right, because if you don't it HURTS, and you'll be forever changed.

Something to keep in mind is that you are probably not in your right mind these days. With a complete lack of therapy on top of self medicating, you are loading a lot on yourself and setting yourself up for failure. These are big things that are happening, major changes going on inside you and around you, and it looks from what you've shared with us like you are totally alone in it all. If there is anyone you can talk to about your feelings, why not do it? Suicide is a big decision and it's hard to do right, so why not get a second, objective opinion before going through with it?

Yeah, The state jumped on my case too. I was given the choice of therapy or jail time in the psych. ward 

My worst/best attempt was hidden by my parents who don't want anyone to know about me.  I have given up on suicide most days.

Yea so many times but i was really young lik 14 n 15 man lik i say "I don't wanna die, i just dont want to live this live!"  yea i still feel da same today but i don't knw just keep movin forward Yea

Teena

By my early 20's (in the early 1970's) I was severely depressed. There was no future, no hope for SRS and all I could see was continuing pain. There were no doctors doing surgery at a sane price and no reason to expect that to change. I attempted suicide a few times, each time more dangerous than the last. Nobody knew - I was very secretive about it.

Finally one night in late November in 1973 I put a bullet in a gun and put the gun to my head. I simply did not want to live any more. I pulled the trigger and the gun misfired (for the first time ever) and a voice from the darkness said "No, not yet. Hold on just a little longer." I was not in the habit of hearing voices! I just wept and wept. Something, someone was telling me there was a reason to wait, so I did.

Within a few weeks I got a call from a friend telling me Dr. Biber had set up practice in Colorado. Within a couple of weeks, Dr. Biber had all my medical records and by April I was gone - off on a whole new wonderful life.

I came so close to missing it all, just one misfire away, just one voice in the night. Even now, 35 years later, I remember the power of that voice and I am thankful for whoever or whatever told me to wait.

With life there is always hope. Without life, there is none.

I only tried, or rather appeared to try when I was crying out for attention. Stupidest thing I ever did.
Thank goodness I grew up.

After three days in the psych. ward I was more than willing to do the therapy

Decided to continue the therapy after the required sessions. I've learned allot and life is going better in some ways.

Sure, I still have my ups and downs. But I've learned how to deal much better in a more mature fashion

I spent most of this year thinking about it and made countless preparations for it but could never go through with it. Got caught in the act once too but I doubt I would have been able to do it that time either (intensely embarrassing though ). I was getting closer than ever by the time I got a job in September, I don't think I'd have lasted too much longer without a change of luck. It's like everyone is saying: things can turn around even though you've convinced yourself they can't.

Quote from: Northern Jane on October 04, 2009, 07:01:16 PM
By my early 20's (in the early 1970's) I was severely depressed. There was no future, no hope for SRS and all I could see was continuing pain. There were no doctors doing surgery at a sane price and no reason to expect that to change. I attempted suicide a few times, each time more dangerous than the last. Nobody knew - I was very secretive about it.

Finally one night in late November in 1973 I put a bullet in a gun and put the gun to my head. I simply did not want to live any more. I pulled the trigger and the gun misfired (for the first time ever) and a voice from the darkness said "No, not yet. Hold on just a little longer." I was not in the habit of hearing voices! I just wept and wept. Something, someone was telling me there was a reason to wait, so I did.

Within a few weeks I got a call from a friend telling me Dr. Biber had set up practice in Colorado. Within a couple of weeks, Dr. Biber had all my medical records and by April I was gone - off on a whole new wonderful life.

I came so close to missing it all, just one misfire away, just one voice in the night. Even now, 35 years later, I remember the power of that voice and I am thankful for whoever or whatever told me to wait.

With life there is always hope. Without life, there is none.

Very nice and encouraging anecdote. 

Ever stay up late and there's nothing on TV but some old movie in black and white and even it's not too great? But you just gotta stay up to see how the story ends? I had a night like that back in the 80s and that's when suicide really came to make no sense to me. You have all the time in the world to be dead, or nothing, or an angel, or the next incarnation, etc. but only a limited amount of time here, so sheer curiousity should make you want to stay around just to see how the story ends.

ANYONE - and everyone - even thinking about this needs to watch a documentary called "The Bridge."  The people who were stopped, or through some miracle did not die, never did it again, and regretted the decision. 

No serious attempts under my belt, but a whole host of thoughts.

I'm a logic driven man however and have "logically" decided it's not an option at this moment in time.
Previously, I simply drowned out the depression and etc with drugs, alcohol (A LOT of alcohol), and promiscuous sex with acquaintances and strangers.
Then I got pregnant. I freaked out and was pressured into keeping the child, which I later learned to accept, and she's eight years old now. I have spent most of the last 9 years, not harming myself for the sake of her.
I may not be a "good" parent, but I'm by far the lesser of two evils.

Recently, I find myself thinking of transition as not only a possibility, but a certain eventuality. And as a result of that, I'm able to better choose to not harm my body because it is the foundation upon which my new body (transition) will be built. And if I go around poking holes in the foundation, the building won't be as strong.

I still think about suicide. And there's no guarantee I won't go ahead with it at some point in the future, 'specially if transition becomes derailed somehow. But for now, I'm not going anywhere.

I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists.
I heard my mother waking up in the next room and I stopped. Somehow I was saved by her, even if she will never know this.
Now I think sometimes, but I hope I will never return so much depressed to trying it again.