>Do not argue with or attempt to invalidate the reasoning of a suicidal person.
Merely saying this may not convince people. They need to know why this completely fails. While suicidal actions are largely impulsive (one reason why guns are a worse threat than other forms of suicide), the individual has spent a long time thinking about it. Nothing you can say will convince them that you have any understanding of their reasoning. To them, you are just like all the others who do not understand them (regardless if they are right or wrong in such an assessment).
By listening, you are likely doing something that no one else has done for them. It will often show them that you want to know their reasoning instead of just dismissing it. It may not be enough to stop them, but it often does delay them, hopefully long enough for a professional to get involved and take over.
> (one reason why guns are a worse threat than other forms of suicide)
I come from a family of avid hunters and gun owners. I don't personally own a gun. Not because of any political reason but because I don't want the ability to pull the trigger when I'm in my darkest of moods. At least without that I have to think about it long enough to hopefully snap out of it. There are a handful of times if you would have handed me I gun I think I would have pulled the trigger... Then when I look back it seems silly but the cycle repeats. One time I simply couldn't find my car keys and almost rage quite life. The car was in the shop.
> One time I simply couldn't find my car keys and almost rage quite life. The car was in the shop.
This is one of the most terrifying aspects of depression for me. I can be functioning perfectly normally (obviously just on the surface), and then one morning I stub my toe or spill a glass of water and I just breakdown. All the frustration, anger, sadness, or whatever that I've been holding in just floods out and I want it all to be over. This is why I used to never drink (and now wish I'd never started), and also why I won't consider owning a gun. When you get depressed you may not be able to control yourself, but you can try to instill good habits in yourself when you're of a sounder mind. Or at least control your environment so you have fewer tools to harm yourself with.
That's the weird thing about depression. At the moment it seems totally rational. Then you look back and think WTF? Like today. I look at the comment I originally made and there is no way I would even share that in the mood (positive) I am in today.
Indeed. The way I explained it to my ex-girlfriend (it ended because of my depression, though I didn't realize I'd fallen back into it at the time): In the moment I was perfectly rational, based on what I believed or "knew" to be true. But what I understood to be true wasn't, in fact, true. Or it was, but the scale was far less significant than what I perceived it to be. Which means that, to the outsider, I was clearly out of my mind (and was), but if they saw what I saw, and heard what I heard, they'd have come to the same conclusions. Goes back to this and other recent posts on things like catastrophic thinking.
OTOH, I generally make these comments when I'm in a more positive mood. That's the only time I can put words to what I experienced.
It isn't just depression. Look at a teenager in love. They will do something today fully defending it for being true love, but in 10 years they will lay awake at night cringing at the very same action.
Merely saying this may not convince people. They need to know why this completely fails. While suicidal actions are largely impulsive (one reason why guns are a worse threat than other forms of suicide), the individual has spent a long time thinking about it. Nothing you can say will convince them that you have any understanding of their reasoning. To them, you are just like all the others who do not understand them (regardless if they are right or wrong in such an assessment).
By listening, you are likely doing something that no one else has done for them. It will often show them that you want to know their reasoning instead of just dismissing it. It may not be enough to stop them, but it often does delay them, hopefully long enough for a professional to get involved and take over.