despair

“Suicidal Intensity”: An Emerging Preferred Term to Describe Experiences with Suicidal Thoughts and Feelings

“Suicidal Intensity”: An Emerging Preferred Term to Describe Experiences with Suicidal Thoughts and Feelings

“Suicide ideation” — that’s what mental health providers usually call it. 

To the general public, this often sounds “jargony”. They say, “ideation — like what do you mean…like thoughts?” And we say, “Yeah…like thoughts…”

And they say, “Well then just say thoughts…” 

“Thoughts” though, don’t really capture the experience fully for most people…

5 Ways to Tap into Hope as a Defiant Superpower against Despair

5 Ways to Tap into Hope as a Defiant Superpower against Despair

I have often said, “Hope is the antidote to suicide.”

I realize that the word “hope” – like “love” and “support” and “leadership” – is often experienced as cliché, having lost its power and meaning from overuse. I would like to reclaim it and use it like Wonder Woman’s shield (goodness I love that movie) to defiantly deflect pessimism, bitterness and negativity coming at us from all angles.

As advocates for suicide prevention and mental health promotion, we must be warriors of hope.  Now is the perfect time to explore how we can learn to build hope as a practice – like pieces of protective armor that protect us as we forge our way onward to the frontiers of what is possible....