Suicide: coping with suicidal thoughts

If yous're having thoughts of suicide, you are not alone.

Coping with suicidal thoughts

Lots of u.s.a. have thought about killing ourselves and have found a way through.

We desire to offer you lot clues, tohu and suggestions for how to brand your way out of the bleakness or hurting you're experiencing. You won't always feel like this.

If things are at crisis betoken for you right at present, or you lot need urgent assist, go to your local hospital emergency department or phone call your local mental wellness crunch cess squad.

If you're in danger right now, delight call 111.

Having suicidal thoughts can exist overwhelming and sometimes terrifying. It tin be actually hard to know what to do and how to cope.

Y'all might experience extremely depressed or anxious, or you might just feel really bad and not understand why. You might exist finding the world harsh and painful, or feel like no one understands.

Y'all can get through this.

Whatever is going on for you that has led to how you lot're feeling right at present is unique to you – simply you are not alone. Lots of people take thought virtually killing themselves and have found a way through.

You may feel like y'all are unloved, useless and not wanted or needed past anyone. You may be feeling hopeless almost the future or powerless, like cypher you do or say can change things. Yous may exist in an abusive state of affairs and demand to get away. You may exist questioning your sexuality. You may be blaming yourself for things that accept happened in your life, and you might call back information technology would be easier for others if you weren't here.

You may not fifty-fifty know why you feel suicidal and remember that y'all accept no reason to want to kill yourself.

Yous may feel guilty and ashamed.

It can feel much worse if no ane knows what y'all are going through or how bad you feel. Yous don't need to be alone. There are people who are willing, able and available to aid yous.

You can get through this.

You lot may not even know why you feel suicidal and think that you have no reason to want to kill yourself.

You may experience guilty and aback.

Information technology tin can experience much worse if no one knows what you lot are going through or how bad you feel. You don't need to exist lonely. At that place are people who are willing, able and bachelor to help you.

Y'all can get through this.

Free suicide prevention resource

If you lot are in crisis

Tell someone what you are thinking – it's the bravest matter you can practice!

If y'all are having thoughts virtually taking your life, information technology's very important to tell someone y'all trust so y'all can get the help you demand to experience ameliorate. If you tin't immediately find someone yous know to talk to, there are always people yous tin phone call by phone and who are willing, able and bachelor 24 hours to help yous.

If you are in a serious crisis or yous need urgent help, practise the following:

  • Telephone call your local mental health crisis assessment squad – they are at that place for you.
  • Or go to your local infirmary emergency section – they will help you.
  • If you are in immediate danger, call 111. Emergency services are there for you.

Kei roto i te kōrero, he rongoa
Kei roto i te reo, te rongoa hei mirimiri mō te hinengaro mō te wairua

Talking is a rongoa (healing) for the listen and spirit

- Moe Milne

Helplines

Not an emergency?

Talking to someone you trust can make a real difference.

"Tell somebody. Y'all might get some strange reactions, simply don't worry. Tell somebody. If yous're wanting to kill yourself, trust me yous're not thinking clearly correct at present."
– Paulo, nineteen

Every bit hard as it is, reaching out and talking most how you feel or what y'all're thinking with a trusted friend, whānau or family member really can make a difference. Information technology's not a sign of weakness to ask for help, it'due south the bravest thing yous can exercise.

If the first person you talk to doesn't listen, effort someone else.

If you can't observe someone you know to talk to, call a helpline. They're gratis, anonymous, and accept people you can talk to 24 hours a twenty-four hour period. Free phone call or text 1737 to talk with a trained counsellor or see our list of other helplines.

Talking to someone y'all trust can make a existent difference.

They might help you lot at-home down and offer breathing space while y'all decide what to do next. They can be with you at times when you don't desire to be alone.

They might have advice or suggestions well-nigh how to manage your situation. It is sometimes easier for other people to see what options you have.

If there's something specific y'all need, don't be afraid to ask. Maybe it'south but someone to sit with you and mind. You could ask someone to keep to the doctor with you, or to call and make an date with a counsellor.

  • people in your family, whānau, friends or support networks
  • your md or a counsellor
  • elders, kaumātua or kuia, faith leaders or someone from your church or mosque
  • support groups for people going through similar things
  • phone helplines and websites.

If your request for assist isn't heard, ask over again. You may need to observe someone who can help you observe the right person to talk to, or who will get with you to appointments or meetings.

If yous are finding it hard to talk well-nigh what you're going through, you tin attempt starting with: "Lately, I've been feeling…"
"I think it started when…"
"I've been feeling this for a while…" or
"I'm thinking about…"

Most people who have suicidal thoughts don't desire to dice – they just want to end hurting. That'due south why telling someone is so important. Yous deserve help and support.


" I realised it was more than the unbearable pain I wanted to end rather than my life equally such. The affair is that the pain does end if y'all don't end your life."
– Jono, 27

Asking for help

Asking for help from a doctor or health professional person

There are lots of ways you can find support to get through this – what will work best for you lot depends on your situation, what you need and the relationships you lot have. There is aid available for everyone.

Professional back up tin can include:

  • talking to someone about your thoughts and feelings
  • staying in a hospital or mental health service for a while and having people keep you safe
  • peer support, where someone else who has been through this can back up you
  • medication to help manage your moods
  • learning ways you can help yourself.

Helplines are free phone services you lot tin call to talk to trained volunteers or counsellors about what you lot're going through.

They won't judge who you are or what you're feeling. Helplines tin can as well tell you more nearly how the mental health system works and what's available to you.

Your GP, doctor or hauora service tin can help yous access counselling, mental health services or medication.

Your dr. volition heed to you lot in private, and enquire questions virtually you and your situation. Y'all might want to take some of your family, whānau, friends and support network with y'all. Or you might not. Simply say what you lot would prefer.

Counsellors, schoolhouse counsellors or psychologists are people who are trained to talk through the really hard stuff. They can talk to you about your situation, help to make sense of what you are going through, and explore different ways to cope and recover. It's completely private, and a actually proficient choice if you don't feel like y'all can open up up to your whānau or friends.

Mental health crisis assessment teams can help in emergencies if you're feeling really unsafe.

They can bank check what kind of assist you need, and aid you access it. In some parts of the country, they tin come and visit you wherever you are. Run into Resources & Links beneath for contact details.

It can be very difficult to talk about having suicidal thoughts, simply it's very of import to share what'south going on for you. If you lot accept made a plan to hurt yourself, talk near what you are planning to exercise so that your doctor can empathise how serious your thoughts are.

Ask any questions you'd similar to most what's happening, or inquire a support person to ask for you.

If you're very distressed, it might be suggested you have some medication to help you feel calmer.

Your doctor or health professional may want to talk to your whānau, friends or family unit about you and your situation. They will exercise this with your permission but if there is serious concern that you are in danger, they may talk to others without your consent.

Hospital and community mental health services tin assistance if yous don't feel yous can cope or stay live by yourself.
The idea of going to infirmary or needing medication tin seem actually scary but a lot of people notice it's helpful.

If you lot demand assistance to stay alive, you can get to the Emergency Department of your local hospital. They may offer you medication, hash out with you what kind of help yous desire, or propose you stay in hospital.

Normally this is your selection, but if doctors are worried that you might kill yourself and you won't take treatment, they can make you stay in hospital for a while. If this happens, you should be given data about your rights under the Mental Health Act.

Either manner, earlier y'all leave infirmary, professionals should support you to develop a safety plan to aid you if you get to a crisis point once more.

Community mental health teams support people at home, or exterior of hospital. They might refer you to a respite service or crisis house, which can offering intensive support and a identify to stay while you work through things and start feeling stronger.

Your rights

When you ask for help, you accept the right to:

  • be respected and taken seriously
  • have your distress acknowledged
  • speak privately to people about yourself and your situation
  • be listened to
  • exist encouraged to recover
  • take your family, whānau, friends or support network with you to aid you brand decisions about your care, if you choose to
  • have your cultural needs best-selling and supported, if that'southward what you want.

(source: Ministry building of Health)

Coping right now – and finding your way through

When you are in emotional hurting information technology can be hard to believe that you will ever feel meliorate.
Some of usa take found the following ideas give us promise and helped us recover from suicidal feelings.

Thoughts, non actions

Try to remember that thoughts about killing yourself are just thoughts. You don't have to act on them, no matter how overwhelming they are or how often y'all have them. You lot won't always have these thoughts.

Be kind to yourself. Yous but have to cope with i day or one hour at a time.
If you can, endeavor to detect the globe around y'all and give yourself a pause from focusing on your distress.

Keep safe

Get rid of anything you recollect y'all might use to hurt or impale yourself, or put information technology somewhere you can't admission it.

Attempt to avoid drinking alcohol or taking non-prescription or recreational drugs. They can change the way you recollect and feel, more often than not in unhelpful ways.

Make a safety plan so you know what to do if you feel really bad.


"Larn from others – read about how other people have managed."
– Gavin, 49

Distract yourself
While it may feel similar you have to human activity now, try to postpone any decisions almost pain yourself.

Continue a listing of things yous can do to distract yourself. This might include watching a video online, calling a friend, exercising or listening to music. Check your listing and discover something y'all tin do to distract yourself from suicidal thoughts.

Fill a 'lark box' with things that y'all observe comforting and meaningful. This could exist music you like listening to, photos, phone numbers of friends you could ring, a taonga, notes to yourself, perfume, a toy, or anything else you discover helpful.


"If yous can think of annihilation that makes you experience the tiniest bit meliorate, do it. Then do it again. Y'all tin actually start to release the pain that mode."
– Helena, 32

Connect with others

Talk to someone y'all trust about what's on your listen, whenever y'all need to.

Keep a list of people y'all can phone call. If you're non sure who yous can talk to, try a helpline or text counselling service.

Spend time with people who you similar and trust.

Retrieve about what kind of help you need when yous experience low. You may desire friends to visit yous, send y'all texts or messages, selection up groceries, melt you lot a meal, or requite yous advice. Permit people know and then they can do their best to support you.

Expect after yourself

Hither are some other ways you can take care of yourself:

  • Get a good amount of sleep, rest and exercise, and eat regularly.
  • If you're taking prescribed medicine (whether it is for a physical illness or a mental health problem), don't stop taking it without talking to your doctor first.
  • Take time off work or school if yous need to. Your doctor can help accommodate this.
  • Go along a diary, or write a letter to someone that yous don't send. Writing things downward can help you understand what you lot're thinking or feeling, or how you're reacting to situations. Information technology can also aid you notice solutions to whatsoever problems you lot're facing.
  • Do things you lot find healing. Become for a massage or mirimiri.
  • Express yourself in whatever manner makes sense to you: sing waiata, have photos, dance, draw.
  • Acquire how other people take got through this. Scout videos or read books. It really can help hearing other people talk virtually how they managed their feelings of wanting to dice. There are suggestions at the end of this book.
  • Connect with areas of your life that give yous a sense of pregnant e.1000. your friends, whānau, culture, spirituality, any you're passionate about. Get to places that restore you. Swim in the bounding main, go home to your marae, sit in a park under the copse.
  • If you lot're asunder from beingness Māori, detect a way to reconnect. If you don't know where to offset, join a kapa haka grouping or start learning te reo to be around the civilization.
  • Accomplish out and find people who are like yous, or who are going through like things. If you're questioning your sexuality or gender, or feeling isolated because of who y'all are, see below to find someone to talk to.
"In that location really are so many things in life that aren't fair or equal or right. You're not crazy if you think like that, you're onto something. Racism, prejudice, abuse. Don't let information technology implode you lot. Plow the anger back out where information technology belongs. Learn to channel it into irresolute your world. You're way more powerful than you realise."
– Wai, 55

More people and places to contact for support

For professional person support, talk to your local doctor, medical centre, hauora service, community mental health team, schoolhouse counsellor or counselling service.

If you don't get the help you need the first time, continue trying.

Sometimes when we experience suicidal it can be related to other stuff that's going on in our lives – money issues, relationship breakups, violence or sexual abuse, or going through large changes.

When y'all need support with things like this, there are people who can help. Social workers, youth workers, Whānau Ora navigators, or free helplines can support you to work things out or direct you lot to the aid you demand.


"Climb your maunga, swim in your river, talk with your kuia. The medicine is in your whakapapa."
– Elena, 53

Medication

Your doctor may prescribe antidepressants, feet treatments or other medications.  Often both medication and therapy is useful. Finding the right medication can be a matter of trial and error – there is no way to predict which will exist constructive for, and tolerated (take fewer troublesome side effects) by, any one person. Medication can help manage your moods.

If you lot are prescribed medication you lot are entitled to know:

  • the names of the medicines
  • what symptoms they are supposed to care for
  • how long it volition be before they have effect
  • how long you will take to have them for and what their side effects (short and long-term) are.

If you are chest feeding no medication is entirely safe. Before making any decisions about taking medication at this time you lot should talk with your dr. most the potential benefits and problems.

Complementary therapies

Complementary therapies may be used in add-on to other treatments and prescription medicines. Mindfulness, yoga, exercise, relaxation, massage, mirimiri and aromatherapy accept all been shown to be helpful in making people feel less distressed.

Complementary therapies can include using a number of herbal and other medicinal preparations to treat particular conditions. It is recommended that care is taken equally prescription medicines, herbal and medicinal preparations tin can interact with each other.

Physical health

It is really important to wait afterward your concrete wellbeing. Talk to your doctor or wellness practitioner almost how you can look after your physical health while recovering.

Personal safety programme

Sometimes it tin can really help to make a Personal safety plan

Take some time to make full in My ain survival plan with a doctor or back up person, or by yourself. Try to find a fourth dimension when you're feeling calm.

This programme asks y'all to think about what you lot need to stay condom, your reasons for staying live, what you lot can do and who tin help when you're distressed. It tin also help you to make a plan with your support people well-nigh what to do if you become suicidal or are at risk of hurting yourself once again.

' "One day you lot'll look back on this and be actually pleased that you're still around – there are still things in your path to discover" – Ali, 57 '

– He oranga ngākau he pikinga wairua - When the heart is well, the spirit is lifted.

Resources and links