I believe there IS a difference between genuine attempts and...cries for help...
Although a cry for help can morph into the real thing after a miscalculation. Perhaps there is an ambivalent category where a rescue is still sought but the subject is also really willing to die should the intervention not come. I guess that's why
all suicidal gestures are taken seriously by professionals and those who interest themselves in the phenomenon. At age 15 after a lengthy argument with my father, who then single-parented me and a brother, I made a ridiculous lunge for a bottle of nonprescription sleeping tablets. My dad kept me from eating them and they would have just made me sick if I had--antihistamines are not known for their lethal potential. I was put in adolescent treatment at the state mental hospital. This was in 1979 when they would still admit for such minor problems, a thing ballooning costs have precluded by now.
Since then I haven't made a suicide attempt. I've created the usual melodramatic scenes by threatening suicide, once over the phone with my mom with little concern for her feelings or the fact she had always loved me deeply. The cops came and took my gun away. This only "earned" a week in the general hospital psych ward--unlike my childhood residence, the Utah State Hospital has only 157 beds to serve 3 million people, so that it's reserved mostly for foresnsic psychiatric cases from the courts. A private long-term mental hospital will never admit someone like me who has no insurance money, besides that I don't have any diagnosable conditions to begin with. Malingering, maybe.
I've written suicide notes and laid them aside quietly several times. Two more trips to the psych ward have followed. Dammit! I hit
submit reply too soon when I was meaning to junk this post. What the deal, whoopee! I'm sick with selfishness and self-pity and self-delusion.
But there haven't been any more attempts.
Oddly, one thing turned out okay. I quit smoking at the local hospital the last time I was there a year ago. They wouldn't let you smoke there. I wanted to get some small victory out of the stupid business, so I didn't resume smoking when they let me out. This has helped my lungs some; they don't crap out on me like they did. Plus I can see my computer screen's colors, no dingy amber film darkens them. I still chew those nicotine gum loaves several times each day, however. Then, the county outpatient mental health offered me counseling and I was on general assistance for about two months. They do try to help, but resources are limited and I can't ask for the moon.
I really haven't taken advantage of opportunities I've had...and not everyone gets these. Health care in Angola, anyone? .. :yay: