Suicidal thoughts and self-harm

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Do you have a safety plan?

replies: 97

Safety planning involves creating a structured plan – ideally with support from your health professional or someone you trust – that you work through when you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts, feelings, distress or crisis. Your safety plan starts with things you can do by yourself, such as thinking about your reasons to live and distracting yourself with enjoyable activities. It then moves on to coping strategies and people you can contact for support – your friends, family and health professionals. The safety planning model was developed in the US by suicide prevention experts Barbara Stanley and Gregory Brown. It has been used extensively by US veterans’ health organisations, hospital emergency departments and high schools, and there is strong evidence that it works. Many health professionals in Australia also use some form of safety planning to support clients experiencing suicidal thoughts or feelings, or after a suicide attempt. beyondblue has an app you can use to create a safety plan, called BeyondNow. The BeyondNow app takes the principles of safety planning and makes it even easier to use – so rather than carrying around a piece of paper, you’ve got it on your phone at all times. It’s free to download from the Apple Store or Google Play. If you don’t have a smartphone or would prefer to use your desktop or laptop, BeyondNow is also available to use on our website. Do you have a safety plan? Do you have questions around how you might create one, or fill out some of the sections? This thread is for discussing ideas around creating a safety plan, and sharing tips about what has been most useful about this process for you. Below are two videos featuring Peter and Nic, who have both used safety plans successfully. Peter Nic

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: posting in this section

replies: 0

Life gets pretty hard sometimes and many people in this online community have had times where they have thought about hurting themselves or ending their life. This can be a stressful and at times overwhelming experience, and this section is here to help members who have had these experiences. This is a place to share where you are at, seek ideas for help and know that you are not alone. We are here to create a safe environment for everyone. Please do not provide any details about any plans/ideas that you may have had to hurt yourself, and importantly, help us to understand if you are safe by letting us know in the post. Making comments that let us know that you are having thoughts, but are safe, helps us to know that your conversation can continue without interruption, and that we do not need to put any further follow up for you in place. This section will not be for everyone.It shows posts from people who are distressed, offers public replies to these posts, and encourages people to come back and share how they got past that difficult point in time - what worked, what didn’t and how they now approach these difficult thoughts. It is important to think about what you want from the forums, what information you need and what threads will be helpful to your situation, rather than reading everything that is posted. For some people this section might be difficult to read – if it is not helping how you feel, then please consider moving to another section. This section, like the rest of our forums, is closely monitored and all posts are reviewed by moderators before publication. Moderators will also ensure that anyone needing follow up will be provided with information about how to access further support. This section remains a discussion forum focused on helping each other through the dark times, it is not a crisis support service. Any posts that do not abide by the community rules will not be published. Unlike other areas of the forum, threads in this section will be closed after a period of one month of inactivity. If you are in crisis or need immediate help, assistance is not available via these forums. Please call Suicide Call Back 1300 659 467, Lifeline 13 11 14 or contact emergency services on 000.

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Self Imploding Manchild

replies: 17

I'm 43, no savings, no house, no friends, no ambition, no interest in living but i do have a crippling gambling addiction. I can't talk to my wife or anyone about my problems because they're not normal - things i'd be too scared to mention here. The last time i spoke with a counselor she had to ask for another persons help less than one minute into the conversation and near the end, i was one "wrong" answer away from being locked up for the three day observation thing. I've read some of the posts here and no one has (or at least posted about) the same problems i have. I do want to feel better but truly believe i'd be put away if i was honest about what goes through my head. It's getting harder and harder to conform to what is deemed as "normal". I take pills for anxiety but in some ways i think i'm worse off for it. My gambling has been far worse since being on the pills. For the last four months or so I think about suicide daily. How to do it, where, when, what my note would say.

A friend has been self-harming and suicidal.

replies: 3

Hi all, Just today my friend said if she could speak to me in text on Instagram. I have a small group of friends, 5 girls, and two boys (one of the boys is me). She was sort of the quiet one, but she is pretty funny, she has a best friend in the group, her name is Skye. They have been known to joke around a lot and be really happy, but the hurt one, Pheobe is depressed and told me about her self-harming. She always said, she wanted to kill herself and stuff, we always thought it was kind of a half-joke and she was just sad. I kind of ignored her because I personally find it kind of unfunny and annoying to joke about that stuff. And I regret that. She messaged me when we came back from school this: "I’ve been self harming again and I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like everyday I get worse and worse and I just wish I had someone to talk to , i can’t tell my dad because he already has enough stuff going on in his life and I don’t want him to worry about me, i don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been clean until like a month ago, i wish I was genuinely happy man." I'm not to sure what to say to her, I said I'm all ears and tried to tell her that I would listen, we chatted for about 10 minutes and she said she said she wanted to talk at school. I'm pretty socially awkward and don't really give eye-contact when I talk to people. I just don't know what to say to her. I honestly haven't talked to her without joking once, and things will just be really awkward. Please help!

Really struggling to continue life.

replies: 4

I am currently struggling to find a reason to continue to live my life. Everyday is a battle against staying here for the sake of my family and pushing through my sad and sorry life. I have no true friends at school and everyone either doesn't know who I am, thanks to my social anxiety and therefore extreme quietness and shyness, or takes the complete piss out of me as a person with their friends. I am sick of living my life. I don't find joy in anything anymore. I have good grades and all but I don't feel proud of who am I am at all. I am sick of being so socially anxious, it truly ruins my life. Thanks to my social anxiety people think I am weird and stay away. I have the worst stutter when I am anxious and it is so dehumanizing when I try to make new friends. No one cares about me and it would make no difference if i am gone or not. I hate myself and my life so much, sometimes I get this feeling that something is crushing my chest I want it all to end so bad. I just want someone to listen and not judge me for these messed up feelings as its not realy something you can just tell anyone who asks if I am okay. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I already appreciate that you did so.

Depressed, no one understands

replies: 5

I’m a teen, I’ve had depression and anxiety for years, my friends and family support me and I will be receiving help soon. But, it’s getting harder and harder to handle, it hurts. I was physically and emotionally abused from a young age, and although it’s stopped, whenever I think about it I start panicking and it gets so bad that I can’t breathe. I try talking about it to my family but they just say, “I suppose you’ll have to go on some drugs(medication)”,and the conversations closed.I have self harmed before and attempted suicide, I don’t want to go backwards again. I’m severely depressed and I can’t cry, I just can’t, nothing is enjoyable anymore. Is it selfish

I wonder what's the point

replies: 2

I haven’t done anything like this before and I don’t know where to start. I hate my life and wake up most days wondering what’s the point. I constantly go for walks or long drives and wonder if I should just end it and if anyone would even notice. just when I think things are going good, I instantly expect for that to end and before you know it, my life is back to square one again. I feel like everything I do isn’t good enough and I surround myself with people that I am constantly comparing myself to. do I even have close friends? Or am I just tagging along to make myself look busy on social media? i feel completely alone and like no one can fix me. I have been on medication for nearly 10 years but that doesn’t work at all these days. I’m completely at my last resort and feel so numb to the thought of dying now.

Checking out

replies: 4

This is my first post on any kind of forum, so please excuse my naivety. I want to check out constantly. I live every day with the visions of my demise, scenes playing out of the plans I have made, of the wishes of my mind, and I cannot shake them. I spend so many hours in my home, alone. I have two teenage boys, and whilst I love them completely, as they do me, I am constantly at loggerheads with them. (Yes, I know this is normal). I do not have any family in Australia, and my circle of friends is very small, with contact being limited. My only regular conversations are with therapists every week and my GP. My children have little to no contact with their father and have not done for the past almost 5 years, although this has been out of his control for the past two months, as he had a massive heart attack and has suffered a brain injury as a result. (He is currently in a rehab unit- learning how to do everything again). I have lived with manic depression and anorexia all my adult life, and I just can't keep going. As I mentioned I see two therapists regularly and have peer support from a third, and when I tell them how I am feeling, I know they are worried, as am I, but what can they or anyone do? Today, all I hear is "Just do it. Just go and end it all. The world doesn't need you, it would be better off without you. You are not needed here anymore", with a few expletives in there too. How can I silence this? Now it's the weekend, and I know if I reach out for help, my children will be taken away, and that cannot happen, but if I stay silent, I am going to go mad! PLEASE!

Self Harm and Disassociation

replies: 2

I am in a no win situation. I dont want to live like this anymore but i am too much of a coward to die. Something has to change. I cant do this much longer. How can i talk to my family about this when they all have their own stuff to deal with? I cant put this on them. Too stupid to use technology, too old and fat and broken to love again, too tired to live, too cowardly to die.

Feeling alone n lost mentally

replies: 2

Just want someone that understands me n knows what it’s like to feel alone n wanted to be heard I feel like it’s constantly a battle to deal with this n suicidal thoughts as well day n night . Someone please just help me please.

I don’t really know what’s going on

replies: 2

I really hate talking about stuff like this and I have really only told one person how I feel and I regret it and I’m not really sure why. For a while now I have been finding things kinda rough and I don’t know what to do about it. My grades were decent in high school and I did enough study to stay afloat and sit on low Bs and High Cs but now in college I’m finding it difficult to get out of bed let alone go to school, I feel like I’m constantly letting people down especially my parents. I also keep having these thoughts I really hate having and it went from me thinking about how if I died I wouldn’t care to picturing how I would kill my self if I did, I also find my self getting extremely angry or even getting to the point of tears over really petty small things. I feel like I’m being really selfish and self centred. I’m really tired all the time and I find myself eating for no reason besides the fact I’m feeling anxious or just sad. My anger outbursta have caused my friends to be frustrated and I hate that. Sometimes I feel like these emotions are fake and I’m subconsciously putting these on for attention seeing as though I laugh and have fun with my friends sometimes i feel time fly by so extremely quickly to elaborate the other day in the shower I sat down for what felt like 5 minutes but when I got up 1 hour had passed. Also recently I’ve been getting extremely lazy and it really angers my parents they regularly yell at me about how my room isn’t clean or how I’m going to fail in life if I keep going how I’m going. Is this my fault? Did I do this to my self? I’m Confused. I’m really sorry for how jumbled up this was I didn’t really plan this and I just wrote down everything on how I have been feeling as it came to mind

Depression never ends

replies: 2

I'm sitting here again for the I don't even know how many times feeling insanely depressed, my life is going nowhere I never want to leave the house. I tell my family how I feel and they either just ignore me or laugh and tell me to suck it up. I honestly don't know what to do anymore and feel as if suicide is my only option. I'm struggling so hard with life and I feel as if I'm never going to be happy. I'm so messed up its unbelievable.

Do you have a safety plan? replies: 97

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: posting in this section replies: 0

Self Imploding Manchild replies: 17

A friend has been self-harming and suicidal. replies: 3

Really struggling to continue life. replies: 4

Depressed, no one understands replies: 5

I wonder what's the point replies: 2

Checking out replies: 4

Self Harm and Disassociation replies: 2

Feeling alone n lost mentally replies: 2

I don’t really know what’s going on replies: 2

Depression never ends replies: 2