Why Do I Feel Suicidal?

If you are in immediate danger, please call: 1–800–273–8255.

It’s so important to explore the many different reasons we may feel suicidal. Identifying the cause of our pain can be enlightening and eye-opening. It can even help us lead a hopeful and enjoyable life again.

Here are some less talked-about reasons you might feel suicidal that can be further researched and discussed with a mental health professional:

• ADHD Burnout
• Autistic Burnout
• Bipolar Disorder
• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
• Career Burnout
• Caregiver Burnout
• Depression and Grief
• Domestic Violence or Abuse
• Eating Disorders
• Illness or Disability
• LGBTQIA+ Issues
• Poverty or Debt
• Schizophrenia
• Substance Use and Addiction
• Trauma, PTSD, or C-PTSD

Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder (ADHD) Burnout

Individuals with ADHD may experience suicidality as a result of being overwhelmed with work, unable to meet deadlines, or struggling to learn and retain information. People with ADHD often work harder than people without ADHD to perform at a regular rate. Suicidality is usually experienced as triggered by struggles with productivity.

Autistic Burnout

Autistic burnout is similar to other kinds of burnout, but the recovery often takes longer and related suicidal ideation may onset in childhood. It is estimated that 1 in 54 people have autism. Because many autistic people “mask” (meaning they expend additional energy to behave “normally” and fit in), their autism may go undiagnosed until adulthood.

Autistic burnout is the result of long-term masking along with sensory overload, resulting in suicidal ideation and depression symptoms. Autistic adults often report suicidality after six or so months at a new job, or following a major life change, which are additional signs of autistic burnout.

What does autistic burnout look like, specifically? Autistic burnout often occurs with increased meltdowns or shutdowns. Meltdowns look like compulsive hitting, screaming, or crying. Overwhelm may be related to or confused with panic attacks, although its trigger is more often exhaustion or overstimulation. Shutdowns are similar to meltdowns, but the person may become unable to speak or respond for an extended period.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder involves suicidality as individuals affected move through extreme highs and lows (bipolar 1) or moderate highs and extreme lows (bipolar 2). During the depressive episodes, suicidality may be present. Depression often looks like the inability to socialize, complete basic hygiene, or work, with the manic (high) episodes looking like extreme changes to one’s body or life, getting very little sleep, and completing large projects. These mood changes typically occur over weeks, differentiating them from BPD’s mood changes occurring throughout the day.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder may experience intense highs and lows and very tumultuous relationships, with suicidal ideation onsetting when plans are changed or people do not follow-though. It is common for folks with BPD to self-harm and to suffer extreme mood changes throughout the day. It is thought that BPD is often the result of trauma, so individuals with a history of trauma may want to be evaluated.

Career Burnout

Career burnout can cause suicidality that presents with extreme tiredness, irritability, and is often alleviated by breaks from work, change in routine, and/or extended time off.

Caregiver Burnout

Caregiver burnout usually leads to passive rather than active suicidal ideation, due to the sense of duty and love for the person they care for. However, the cognitive dissonance faced by burned out caregivers makes their suicidal feelings especially intrusive and difficult to process. Chronic passive suicidality in caregivers often presents as various forms of self-abandonment, including self-sabotage, self-starving, or extreme people-pleasing.

Depression and Grief

Depression onsets for many reasons, but depression connected to a state of grief can lead to suicidality for some people. For example, people who have lost a loved one, experienced a breakup, or lost a job may feel the only way to escape the pain is to end their own life.

Domestic Violence or Abuse

Individuals stuck in abusive relationships may also feel suicidal as a result of feeling trapped. Immense psychological and physical endurance is needed to survive an abusive relationship or domestic violence. Coercive control may remove an individual’s sense of freedom. Additionally individuals who feel they may not be able to get themselves out of the dangerous situation, or feel guilty for subjecting a child or loved one to abuse, may feel the only way out is ending their life.

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are among the deadliest of mental health struggles, and often individuals with eating disorders suffer from comorbid anxiety or depression. Disordered eating can be a form of self harm, and at its worst, can be used as a way to slowly kill oneself. Unfortunately, as malnutrition and eating disorder behaviors cause immense damage to the body, individuals who are unable to recover often suffer from suicidal ideation alongside their disorder.

Illness or Disability

Illness and disability impact quality of life in many ways, compounding the struggle to stay alive. First, take the impact of illness itself. Whether it affects mobility, cognitive function, basic hygiene, self care, or sensation, illness can make daily life feel like a herculean effort at best, or a type of hell at worst.

The effort of living with health problems or disability can also interfere with the positive experiences that make life feel worth living. Connecting with friends or attending fun outings may become difficult, leading to isolation.

To top it all off, debt from medical bills or disability-related expenses can compound feelings of hopelessness and pointlessness.

When life feels so high-effort and low-reward, it’s easy to lose the will to live.

LGBTQIA+ Isolation

Individuals who lack a support system or are rejected by family and friends run a high risk of feeling suicidal. Additionally, people who are not accepting of their gender or sexual identity may feel trapped and reject themselves (called “internalized transphobia” or “internalized homophobia”), leading to suicidal feelings. Transgender individuals especially run a high risk of suicidality due to societal struggles and bullying, along with costs related to full transition–especially when costs are not covered by insurance. It is very important to find community and self-acceptance!

Poverty or Debt

Individuals facing poverty or debt, sometimes due to drug or gambling addiction, may also feel their only escape is suicide. With mounting bills and financial anxiety, many individuals feel there is no escape. They may not have the skills to have a higher earning job, may be in so much debt they cannot, or may be disabled and unable to work. Filing bankruptcy may also seem impossible or embarrassing, and individuals born into poverty without the ability to improve their situation may feel increasingly hopeless.

Schizophrenia

Individuals with schizophrenia may experience a variety of hallucinations, disconnecting them from others’ reality or disrupting their relationships. Additionally, individuals suffering from extreme paranoia, hallucinations, and/or delusions may be completely overwhelmed by their environment, or they may direct harm at themselves. Both internal directives and overwhelm can result in suicidality or self-harm.

Substance Abuse and Addiction

Individuals suffering from addiction often feel suicidal, and may have even moved towards drugs as a way to alleviate the mental suffering of suicidality. Additionally, most often those suffering from addiction will have comorbid trauma and seek relief through drugs or alcohol. As addiction can negatively impact all aspects of life, suicide can feel like the only way out. Killing oneself would be the ultimate escape from the pain of sobriety or facing the choices one made as a result of addiction. Typically suicidality as the result of addiction occurs concurrently with drug use.

Trauma, PTSD, or C-PTSD

Survivors of trauma often experience suicidality as a way to escape the pain of trauma. Similar to addiction, suicide might seem the best option to escape the recurrent throughts and feelings that can feel overwhelming and suffocating. Additionally, trauma causes a state of hypervigilance that may never cease, leaving an individual unable to relax enough to eat or sleep. Suicide can feel like the only way out of never-ending alertness. Suicidality related to trauma can occur after the traumatic event, after a triggering event, or in response to chronic, treatment-resistant symptoms of trauma.

Survivors of C-PTSD are likely to feel suicidal as a result of loneliness and isolation, as complex trauma usually involves emotional abuse at the hands of other people. In this way, the social connection that we all require for wellbeing becomes triggering.

Next Steps

If any of the above resonated, please take that next step of reaching out to trained people and services who are truly equipped to help you. While many fear discussing suicidality with therapists in fear of being sent to the hospital, good therapists are trained in modalities such as dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) that specifically assist with suicidality and are accessible outside of a medical setting. An experienced and competent provider should not refer you unless you seem in immediate danger of harming yourself.

While individuals can feel suicidal for so many different reasons, suicidality is both common and extremely complex. All suicidal feelings should be handled seriously, and with the help of a licensed mental health professional.