GET HELP NOW! Please don't wait. The following people and resources are waiting to help you:

• If you feel you are or could be a danger to yourself, please:
  • Call 988 (in the US) to talk to a trained counselor. This number operates in every state. If you feel you are in a life-threatening medical emergency, please call 911 (in the US) or your local emergency services phone number (if not in the US). If you can manage it, call a friend or relative and ask them for support. Many people in the world are isolated and don't have friends or relatives. If that is the case for you, please understand that this may be a temporary condition for you. It may quickly change once your depression lifts. One of the characteristics of depression is that it feels eternal: things have always been this way, and they always will. This is not true, but it is a kind of thinking that seems to occur with depression. It lifts when the depression lifts. Depression is one of the conditions that is actually easiest to treat.
  • Have someone drive you, or drive yourself, to the nearest hospital emergency room.
  • If you have a psychotherapist, please call that person NOW.
• Call your local, anonymous suicide prevention hotline. In Santa Cruz, that toll-free number is 1-877-ONE-LIFE. The US national number is 800-273-8255. Or, 24/7, text HOME or CONNECT to 741741. In Canada, text HOME to 686868, and in the UK, text HOME to 85258. You do not need to be actively suicidal to call or text the lines! Suicide prevention volunteers are there to listen--without judgment--to what you are feeling and thinking.
• Remember that sometimes a feeling of wanting to kill oneself actually means we want to kill off some part of ourselves, some part that has been self-destructive, or very hurt. Sometimes it signals a change is coming inside, something so big that one's life is healed or transformed by it. Please don't confuse parts of yourself with your whole self. If this seems familiar to you, or something inside you feels perhaps this is the case for you, please seek out the help of a mental health professional. Psychodynamic psychologists are trained to help people with this kind of situation.
• You've probably heard or read that feeling suicidal is sometimes a sign of anger turned inward: we are so angry with someone else we feel we can't (or really can't) express our anger to them in a productive way, so it becomes directed toward ourselves. Anger is a powerful emotion, and the neural pathway for anger and sadness is the same. It seems we get to feel angry or sad, but not both at the same time. Consider whether there is someone else you're mad at. Anger and violence are different things. Feeling angry is fine. Acting it out in violence is not. If this strikes a chord with you, psychotherapists and clergy persons are trained to help!
• You might have noticed you have symptoms of depression. If so, the depression is probably distorting your thinking. You might notice that you are very critical of yourself, for instance. Cognitive psychotherapy is very effective at helping people examine and modify negative thoughts that occur with depression. For more information about depression, visit the other areas on this site, or click here to get information on National Depression Screening Day (including a link to an online depression screening test).
• For some, feeling suicidal is in response to a great deal of pain: so much, it feels like it will go on forever and one cannot bear it. Many spiritual and religious traditions teach of this pain and offer means of allowing it to flow through you, or of overcoming it. Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and other Christian religions are just a few of those. Ministers, priests, and rabbis are trained in counseling people in life-or-death crisis, which they view as a spiritual crisis. Visit, call, attend a service, or search the internet if this seems to fit for you.
• Most cities and towns in the U.S. now have 2-1-1, which is a number you can call to get free community resources and help for all kinds of problems in living! They will connect you with help for jobs, housing, mental health care, support, health information, and so on.
• Call the National Depression Screening Project, which offers a nationwide screening for depression and suicidality each year in October throughout the U.S. They also provide referrals to screening sites which operate throughout the year.
• Feeling suicidal is NOT a sign that you are crazy, and feeling ashamed of your pain is understandable in our culture (which seems to fear emotion), but inappropriate. Remember that most people (yes--most people) have considered suicide at some time in their lives. Although you may feel like it, you are absolutely not alone.