3 ms·

There are a few pieces of evidence that suggest long-term depression can impact neurogenesis, which could lead to altered cognition. I don't know if that's a pr

There are a few pieces of evidence that suggest long-term depression can impact neurogenesis, which could lead to altered cognition. I don't know if that's a prevalent theory, and as the author points out, it doesn't explain non-depressive suicides. I can, however, answer this anecdote with another anecdote. I've been dealing with suicidal thoughts for about 5 years, and at some points some very limited self-harm. On an earlier post, I detailed what I thought was my most frightening, closest-to-suicide moment. > The scariest, closest to suicide moment I ever experienced was when I was shopping at a mall. It wasn't very busy, and I was feeling very... manic might be the word. Head down, headphones in, speed walking between errands. I had to keep moving, no matter what. I noticed the sort-of cut-away in the floor, so you could see from the top floor down to the ground. It was only 3 stories, but I had a really strong, sudden impulse to vault over the railing and see what it would do to me. Maybe I could land on my head, that might work. It was something I had never really considered before, it wasn't a very efficient way to do things, but it just gripped me very suddenly and all of a sudden it was a huge crisis. Being suicidal, generally, is death by a thousand cuts. You have a predisposition, and all the stresses in life push you in that direction (as you've said). But the jumping off the ledge moment is crucial; personally, I have strategies for daily temptations like putting away knives in the kitchen. It's the spur of something unexpected, the sudden, strong, irrational impulse that really scares me.

ghc 14y ago
Aren't impulses like that relatively common? I can recall hundreds of times where I felt a sudden impulse like that since about the age of 10, all triggered by finding myself in a situation where something not normally dangerous presented a very real possibility of death. I always figured my brain was using that impulse to viscerally play out the consequences in my head so as to scare the living daylights out of me (e.g. when first getting used to traveling by subway having a sudden strong impulse to jump into the subway tracks, making me keep well away from the edge of the platform). I always thought the difference between a suicidal person and a normal person was that a normal person would have those thoughts, but they would inspire great fear, where as a suicidal person would experience those thoughts and not experience the corresponding revulsion.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  I describe it as scary, but that's looking back on it. At the time I visualized it, I committed to doing it, and I was starting to change direction before I realized what was even going on. It's difficult to convey, but it kind of fit with the description the author gives; for a time, that was 'the future'.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  Yeah, they're really common; I remember discussing them in Intro Philosophy course in college. Most people have had a moment where they're in a situation that could lead to death and wonder "What if I..." Thinking back to when I was 13 and suicidal, the big difference is that now, when I'm mentally healthy, it's a "What if I...?" thought, while back then it was an "I should..." thought. I remember looking out my front door at the traffic going by in the street and thinking "If I just run outside and into the road in front of a car, it'll all be over." And it was like I got tunnel vision, like that impulse was all the universe consisted of. It's like the article said, about thoughts tending toward concreteness. I wonder, too, about how this relates to a another comment here about it being crucial to increase the physical time necessary to commit suicide. Our driveway was a good 160 feet long; I wonder if a major factor was that it'd take a good 15 seconds to run the length of it, and on some level I realized I'd chicken out before I got to the street. (I didn't get much farther than opening the door before thinking "What the hell am I doing?")
- nodata 14y ago
  There is a book about this: The Imp of the Mind http://www.amazon.com/Imp-Mind-Exploring-Epidemic-Obsessive/dp/0452283078 http://www.amazon.com/Imp-Mind-Exploring-Epidemic-Obsessive/...

ghc 14y ago

Aren't impulses like that relatively common? I can recall hundreds of times where I felt a sudden impulse like that since about the age of 10, all triggered by finding myself in a situation where something not normally dangerous presented a very real possibility of death. I always figured my brain was using that impulse to viscerally play out the consequences in my head so as to scare the living daylights out of me (e.g. when first getting used to traveling by subway having a sudden strong impulse to jump into the subway tracks, making me keep well away from the edge of the platform). I always thought the difference between a suicidal person and a normal person was that a normal person would have those thoughts, but they would inspire great fear, where as a suicidal person would experience those thoughts and not experience the corresponding revulsion.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
I describe it as scary, but that's looking back on it. At the time I visualized it, I committed to doing it, and I was starting to change direction before I realized what was even going on. It's difficult to convey, but it kind of fit with the description the author gives; for a time, that was 'the future'.
nostrademons 14y ago
Yeah, they're really common; I remember discussing them in Intro Philosophy course in college. Most people have had a moment where they're in a situation that could lead to death and wonder "What if I..." Thinking back to when I was 13 and suicidal, the big difference is that now, when I'm mentally healthy, it's a "What if I...?" thought, while back then it was an "I should..." thought. I remember looking out my front door at the traffic going by in the street and thinking "If I just run outside and into the road in front of a car, it'll all be over." And it was like I got tunnel vision, like that impulse was all the universe consisted of. It's like the article said, about thoughts tending toward concreteness. I wonder, too, about how this relates to a another comment here about it being crucial to increase the physical time necessary to commit suicide. Our driveway was a good 160 feet long; I wonder if a major factor was that it'd take a good 15 seconds to run the length of it, and on some level I realized I'd chicken out before I got to the street. (I didn't get much farther than opening the door before thinking "What the hell am I doing?")
nodata 14y ago
There is a book about this: The Imp of the Mind http://www.amazon.com/Imp-Mind-Exploring-Epidemic-Obsessive/dp/0452283078 http://www.amazon.com/Imp-Mind-Exploring-Epidemic-Obsessive/...