Why don’t people who are suicidal seek help when in crisis?

It’s a good question. One group of people who usually won’t ask for help are men. There are several reasons of course, but it all boils down to stigma. Stigma keeps men silent. This is where Men Heal comes in. Men Heal is a mental health support for men and is trying to break the stigma. Men Heal lets men talk openly about depression with other men facing similar crisis or circumstances. They deal with depression, anger management, and anxiety. I’m reprinting a beautiful posting from their site called Lessons On Suicide. Written by a man, it asks the question why don’t people who are suicidal seek help when in crisis?

Please share the article with a man you know or believe is depressed.

Lessons on Suicide: Silence is not Golden

Two days ago on Monday evening I felt suicidal. I had just driven with my friend to visit my parents for a couple of days. When I arrived at my parents I sat in a chair. I planned to go for a walk maybe into some woods and kill myself.

What surprises me now is this:

How can someone with all my experience in counselling, psychology, mindfulness (and so many other coping strategies) and someone who’s set up a mental health organisation in order to reduce the male suicide rate not want to seek help in that moment?

I realised today that we need to unlock the reasons why people who are feeling suicidal don’t seek help when they are in crisis.

In that moment I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t think to call a friend at first. I irrationally felt unloved and yet there are lots of people who love and value me. This is the problem, in that moment logic and common sense have gone.

The solution then is to work out what we need to say to people who are in this suicidal state. A few weeks ago I spoke to someone I know who had attempted suicide. I told them to call me if they ever felt that way again. I told them that in that moment their mind might trick them into not calling me but please do it anyway. Your mind might try and rationalise why not to call me saying ‘Mike said to call him, however he doesn’t really care. He just said it because he runs a mental health organisation but really he doesn’t care about me’. But call anyway.

Oddly I didn’t call the Samaritans like I have before. I didn’t reach out to my kind followers on Twitter at first either.

I need everyone who’s had this experience to help me unlock the reasons for the blockages at that moment.

We need to ask the question:

Why don’t people seek help when planning their suicide?

Copyright MEN HEAL 2015, Aug.12.

Twitter:  @menhealuk