is not inevitable.

There is nothing anyone can say to make you not feel like doing it. It probably doesn't matter to you that it would hurt people. Not because you're mean and want to hurt them, but because it feels like there's no choice about it. The pain is just too much. Or you are driven to it against your will; the urge is stronger than you. Or maybe you deserve to die because you are evil or guilty or just plain worthless. In any case the side effects may not be your concern. Others will suffer, and you are sorry, but you can't help it and the fact that you are willing to hurt people just proves you deserve to die. It's circular, but the circles get smaller and smaller and you're trapped inside them and will be -- mercifully -- squeezed out of existence when they shrink to nothingness.

You may not be able to imagine thinking any differently or else the memory of not being in pain is so nostalgic, so sad because it's gone, that you just want to die even more.

But I have something to say: This is not normal!!!

It is an illness. Most other people are not constantly obsessed with killing themselves. And it's not that they think about it all the time, too, but are strong enough to resist. No, they are not stronger. They simply don't have the urge... You may be much, much stronger than they are: after all you have been keeping in shape by resisting all this time. You are still alive after all and that took effort. You are to be congratulated.

But you don't need to feel this way.

I won't sugar coat things and say there's an easy answer, and I'm not going to tell you simply "talk to someone." It's a dirty secret that no one will tell you, but talking doesn't always help. At worst, it just gives you a chance to convince yourself to actually do it. While they're telling you don't do it for this reason, and don't do it for that reason, you're coming up with the rebuttal and if you are clever enough you could convince yourself to go ahead.

But since there is another way, and people are mostly free of the need to kill themselves, it's worth giving it a try; after all you can still kill yourself afterwords. And this is my message: Intense suicidal urges are a sign of biological mental illness and you need medication or hospitalization (and sometimes therapy in addition) to combat them.

Meds aren't a panacea. Sometimes the first med won't work and you need to try another. And another. But often, even 60-80% of the time, the first one does work and so slowly you can't feel it happen and yet so fast it takes only three to five weeks, you no longer want to die. Poof. It's gone. And this is strange because the desire to die is a thought, not just a feeling, and you don't "change your mind" when a medication works and yet the thought is gone. You no longer need to die. You are free.

Taking medication or going to a hospital is not a sign of weakness, it is simply treating the problem with the right tool. The desire to die is often biological, even though it feels like there are reasons: You want to die because you are upset about a particular loss, or because of some real thing that happened to you, or because you are evil. All those things are environmental triggers which cause a cascade of neurological reactions to happen in people who are at risk due to hereditary and random biological factors. You did break up with a boyfriend. Or someone did die. Or you were abused. None of that will change because of a medication, but medication or therapy in a safe setting where you can't harm yourself can make it so you can continue to live despite these things. You won't get your lost relative back by taking medication. You won't necessarily even stop feeling bad about it. But you won't have to kill yourself.

The way to get help is to go to an experienced psychiatrist (not a psychologist, they are not medical doctors and can't give medications) or a hospital emergency room. Someone may decide you need to go to the hospital for a while you are waiting for the medications to work. Don't panic at the thought of the hospital.

When I finally got to a mental hospital after 8 years of suicidal illness, I was filled with a sense of peacefulness and a feeling that I was finally among my own people. The other patients in the hospital, at least the ones with depression (but probably also most people with schizophrenia) know where you come from. They have been there. You are not the only one. And it is relaxing to be in the hispital because you are prevented from doing it and thus can be safe without all the effort you are used to. You don't have to control your urges. There is no way that you can act on them. You can simply let them pass over you like waves in ocean, when you're in deep water and they are just part of the swell, making you float up and down but not dashing you on the rocks. And then meds may work. For me, it took over twenty different combinations of medication before something finally worked, but when it worked, it was dramatic, and I was very grateful that I hadn't succeeded in killing myself. Some people don't respond to medications (the right med may not have been invented yet) but they feel better in a safe environment or benefit from therapy. Also, even if no treatment works, depression is often self-limiting and goes away by itself after several months.

Whatever form of treatment works for you, at some point you'll be set free, not from the constraints of the hospital (although you will go home from there) but from the much more painful bonds of suicidal depression.

It's that simple.