"I quickly came to the conclusion that most suicidal people get that way because they feel no one ever listens to them."
At least, most suicidal people who call a Suicide Prevention Service.
Thank you for your efforts volunteering, incidentally!
At least, most suicidal people who call a Suicide Prevention Service.
Thank you for your efforts volunteering, incidentally!
Unfortunately it is quite common for people to commit suicide without mentioning their plans to anyone, without anyone even suspecting. For example during our training we were told of a college student who committed suicide in his dorm room. No one missed him until the smell of his decaying corpse disturbed the other students on his hall.
It's also commonly asserted that suicidal people attempt suicide to manipulate others, for example to win sympathy or to send a message. In my experience that is not the case. I've met lots of suicidal people; a former employer of mine, Chris Schefler - a cofounder of the world's first web hosting service - actually did commit suicide. In my whole life I've only met one person who attempted for reasons of sending a message.
"Self injury" is a different thing from suicide attempt. That's commonly practiced by people with Borderline Personality Disorder. A psychiatrist explained to our training class that people with BPD do not experience feelings, so they cut themselves in hopes of feeling something.
fiatchamp's right: that description of people with BPD is waaaay off the mark, and for what it's worth is a prime example of the stigma against BPD sufferers within the psych community. The best research on BPD (see generally the work of Marsha Linehan and subsequent) indicates that far from being "without feelings", people with BPD suffer from an over-intensity of feeling.
It's often compared to being without emotional skin -- just as a person who just had their skin badly damaged will experience extreme sensitivity there, people with BPD are abnormally sensitive to emotional pain -- and end up engaging in self-harm not, generally, as a way to seek attention or manipulate others, but rather to distract themselves from the inner turmoil.
It's a rough disease, made worse by pervasive condemnation from most of society, including many in psych. Thanks again for your work on the suicide line -- and if still you're interested in the topic, please read up on the post-1990s research on BPD. It will be worth it.