What You Can Do

Survive the crisis. Suicide is forever.  Feeling suicidal is generally temporary or intermittent. 
The first step is to delay acting on the desire to harm yourself at the peak of your feelings of despair.  This is the time you are most apt to harm yourself, but it is also the time you are least able to make a fair minded decision.

If life has not been fair to you, you owe it to yourself to be fair to yourself and wait until your emotions subside so you can think more clearly.

Make a commitment to yourself: I will never make a major life altering decision when I am at an emotional extreme.

Make your environment safe.  If you possess substantial quantities of medication, consult your doctor about maintaining the necessary medications and their dosage, and discard the rest.  If you have alcohol or other psychoactive drugs lying around the house, get rid of them.  Suicide is too easy with pills and alcohol is available. 

Make use of the people around you.  People caught up in their pain feel an incredible sense of aloneness.  They believe that nobody understands or cares.  People who feel alone in this world almost always overlook people who do care for them and who would try and help if given the opportunity.  Whither it is a family member, next door neighbour who you know or a worker at LifeLink. 

The bottom line is that if you are on the verge of suicide, you need to remember that there is someone out there who wants to know and who will be eager to help if you allow it.

Take time to care for yourself.  When you are feeling upset or depressed this is easier said than done.  But because you are available to yourself at any time, you are potentially your own most valuable resource.  Do little things like taking better care of yourself.  Even if that’s going to bed and getting up at reasonable hours, having a shower and getting nicely dressed.  These little things can create a positive chain reaction in your life.

This may not dramatically change your life but they will break the vicious cycle of harmful self care habits that can make you feel even worse.  It will set a new tone and help alleviate the distress at least temporarily and help sustain you through this period. 

As hard as it may be to believe: you can change how you feel.  Let’s end with a simple but profound principle: A thought is not a fact.  As hopeless as a situation appears, or as bad as you feel within yourself there is support available and there are people who are willing to help. 

This is taken from "Choosing to Live" (1996), T. Ellis and C. Newman and you can purchase this book on Amazon.

Take a look at our Useful Links page to get additional assistance to help alleviate your specific situation.  Feel free to e-mail us as well on info@lifelink.org.uk.  We would love to hear your story, how you are and provide testimonies online that may help and provide comfort for others in a similar situation as you.

More than 2 people per day die from suicide in Scotland

• In Scotland, suicide is one of the main causes of death among young people today. 
• Every life lost to suicide is a tragedy - whatever the person's age.  One suicide represents lost life, lost talent, lost creativity, a lost mother or father, brother, sister, son or daughter and a wound that does not easily heal in those who are left behind.
• Suicide is still a hidden or taboo topic.  Denial, secrecy and avoidance remain common.
  A major obstacle to effective suicidal prevention is the stigma associated with and surrounding suicide here in Scotland. 
• Taboos prevent us from speaking openly and freely about the problem and discussing what we can do, stigma leads to misunderstandings and intolerance which are a barrier to change.  There is a great need to change public attitudes, and increase awareness and understanding about suicide as a major public health problem that is largely preventable.
• Serious talk about suicide does not create or increase risk, it reduces it.  The best way to identify the possibility of suicide is to ask directly.  Open talk and genuine concern about someone's thoughts of suicide are a source of relief for them and are often they key elements in preventing the immediate danger of suicide.

There are many ways you can help us work towards the goal of reducing suicides in Scotland.  Browsing the information on this website and sharing it with others is just one example.  Below are a few more examples.

• Don’t be afraid to seek help solving a problem
• If you suspect someone you care for or care about is feeling suicidal – take them seriously – be willing to listen – voice your concern – support them to get help
• Encourage your work place, college, school, community centre, care home,  voluntary or community organisation or any or any place where people come together to get training in suicide prevention skills (for example, ASIST training)
• Involve yourself in suicide prevention training

If you have attempted suicide or lost someone from suicide, we can help educate the public using your story, in print or as a media volunteer. Full training is given.

Never underestimate people’s abilities to overcome problems, given the right support, help and guidance