@ZEPHYRA, I think two things helped me not give into suicidal feelings. I was twenty-two when I last contemplated methods I could use to bring about my own death. The trigger was when the young woman I had been dating since high school broke up with me and shortly thereafter married a man she met while I was in the service.
Because I knew how much suffering I had caused my parents when I last tried to kill myself, I voluntarily became a patient in a state mental hospital. I came to realize that compared to the other patients there I was not so bad off. I left AMA and returned to work for an electronics company that manufactured radar-jamming equipment for the Air Force.
I started dating, took up folk music, acting and at age twenty-five entered an inexpensive college with assistance from the state’s rehabilitation agency and having been honorable discharged from the military received support from the federal government. Despite these positive activities, I continued to struggle with depression and thoughts of suicide. I decided that I would allow these feelings but understanding how much suffering suicide cause others to experience, refuse to act upon them. This choice and my empathy has allowed me survive.
As much as I would like to think that I am very intelligent, it fact my IQ was measured as barely above 120. Although the diagnosis of manic-depression (now called bipolar) did not exist when I was a child, it is clear that Mother suffered from it. I think that I developed compassion and a desire to help others because I had lived in this emotionally unpredictable environment. It also was why I earned a BA in psychology.
I had planned to go on to graduate school but lacked the confidence to leave my friends and begin a new life in a strange place. I considered staying and attending grad school there, however the head of the psychology department ridiculed my contention that emotion was critical to determining behavior; being Skinnerian based believed that emotions were merely secondary behaviors. Long story shortened, I still deal with depression despite working with several psychiatrists and psychologists over the years. My life could not be better, and though occasional thoughts of suicide still arise, there is no risk of acting upon them.