Depression – Avoiding Suicidal Thoughts

Transcript

Thinking about suicide and death is actually much more common than you may think. Acting on it – luckily is not as common. What you want to do is if you have thoughts of suicide: you want to talk about them. You want to talk to a friend, a family member – anybody you can find to be honest, just get it out of you. Because when you have thoughts inside your head and you express them out loud (you can even write them down), they’re much less likely to be acted on. So the same is true with – it comes up a lot because of celebrities who have committed suicide lately or some of you may know people personally who have committed suicide, you maybe the parent of a child who has said that they’re suicidal – what’s very, very important to know is common instinct says: don’t ask those people because you don’t want to put the idea in their head. That’s false. One hundred percent false. You will not put the idea in their head. That’s not possible. You need to ask them so that if they are thinking about suicide, they’ll talk to you. The more you talk about something like that, the less likely you are to act on it. So I urge you: ask anybody you know who you’re worried if they’re potentially thinking about suicide.