Monday, April 21, 2003
Suicidal Ideation, Self-Injury and Suicide Attempts
Definition: Any thoughts or acts of self-injury.
It's as simple as that. It isn't the depression itself that may push one past the ideation stage - depressed people can live with ideation for decades & it becomes a form of coping, like "griping" on the job. The greatest hopelessless kicks in when one realizes there is more past than future & believes the future is going to be just like the past. As indeed it will, without help.
Encouragement to get help is unlikely to to come from one's family - they are too accustomed to one's personality & afraid that change - improvement - in the depressed family member will force them to change, to reassess their relationships & possibly acknowledge their own depression. Once the "emergency" is over, treatment begun, family members & even friends may become very resistant to the process of recovery & adjustment, which is a daily, ongoing battle. They may be comfortable with "crisis intervention," as it gives them something obviously useful to do, & also maintains the status quo. So the depressed person begins to believe, "My own family doesn't know who I really am, who I am becoming, & doesn't want to know."
email Bob
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Definition: Any thoughts or acts of self-injury.
It's as simple as that. It isn't the depression itself that may push one past the ideation stage - depressed people can live with ideation for decades & it becomes a form of coping, like "griping" on the job. The greatest hopelessless kicks in when one realizes there is more past than future & believes the future is going to be just like the past. As indeed it will, without help.
Encouragement to get help is unlikely to to come from one's family - they are too accustomed to one's personality & afraid that change - improvement - in the depressed family member will force them to change, to reassess their relationships & possibly acknowledge their own depression. Once the "emergency" is over, treatment begun, family members & even friends may become very resistant to the process of recovery & adjustment, which is a daily, ongoing battle. They may be comfortable with "crisis intervention," as it gives them something obviously useful to do, & also maintains the status quo. So the depressed person begins to believe, "My own family doesn't know who I really am, who I am becoming, & doesn't want to know."
email Bob
