This is how the suicidal person thinks about death.

Ending one's own life usually implies that one has a very unusual style of thinking.

One thing is certain: a priori, practically no one wants to die. The vast majority of people conceive of the dying process as the most terrible thing that can happen to an individual. We humans, in our constant desire to possess total "omnipotence" (in addition to marked ideals of transcendence), yearn for permanence in life.

For the suicidal person, on the other hand, death acquires a special meaning.. Their way of thinking about death is very different from that of the great majority, and that influences their behavior and attitudes.

Death, according to suicidal people

There are two distinct ways in which suicidal people may come to conceptualize death. They are the following.

An emergency exit

Here, the suicidal person understands death as the liberation from the bonds and difficulties of life, a change to pass from the lived experience to another imagined existential plane characterized by the absence of suffering. another imagined existential plane characterized by the absence of suffering..

Suicide can be planned and carried out as a way to free oneself from those problems that suffocate that person. "I can't take it anymore", "I am fed up with this suffering", etc. are just some of the statements that the person in crisis formulates in the deepest moments of his ideation, although he does not have to express them openly. The possibility of committing the act is seen as an emergency exit since their personal, family or social situation becomes practically unbearable.

For the individual it is not so important what he will encounter after death, as the fact of leaving something behind: pain, grief, suffering of family members and loved ones, etc. What is really important is to get out of his state once and for all, to cross this "dead end" in which he finds himself. The main objective of committing suicide is to overcome the present anguish quickly.

Suicide seen in a positive light

For others, suicide may have a different objective than the previous one: to make a change, either in oneself or in the environment in which the suicidal person finds him/herself. From this other point of view, the important thing is not to free oneself from that situation of anguish, but rather to focus on what the person wants. it is centered on what the person wishes to achieve: tranquility, peace, happiness...

In this case, the concept becomes a kind of portal into which the subject enters in order to obtain a more harmonious and pleasant experience of life (on a transcendental level). Therefore, although it may seem illogical and confusing, it is possible to affirm that for these persons the main objective of committing suicide is to live fully, although it may sound paradoxical..

From the aforementioned vision, suicide would be transformed as a gateway to a new life where tranquility and emotional calm are the protagonists, as well as to spice up the new stage of life and move on to another in which there will be neither the anguish nor the suffering that may occur at some point in the present life. It would be something like returning to the security of the maternal womb.

Thus, the act of suicide can be explained by a channeling towards the rejection of life, or by an early approach to death itself.

Suicidal reasoning: a curious contradiction.

In the existing plot of suicide, life and death are the protagonists of the drama. Between these two poles the decision to end one's own life is gestated; in the suicidal dialectic, the fear of living and suffering, on the one hand, and the fear of dying on the other, would be the two extremes of existing.

The objective, then, is to die, but also to begin to live in a different way.. Several authors affirm that suicidal behavior is, in the first place, an act of life and not of death. The person who wishes to commit suicide longs to be free of his or her problems, to change existing circumstances or to return to a state of security, but deep within him or her lies a fervent desire to live.

A form of hope?

Other scholars of the phenomenon consider that suicide signifies hope, hope to continue living in peace and tranquility. With the above, suicide becomes the way to eliminate the existing hopelessness, suffocating depression and permanent guilt. It is also a way to disappear, but remaining in the consciousness of family and friends as a painful and difficult to overcome memory.

At the extreme of those who look at life, there is the great spectrum of those people who manifest a first symptom of general malaise identified as "denial of life" and disqualification of self, which produces a deep desire not to live, not to exist anymore.

It is from this moment when there is a sudden turn towards deathFrom the constant desire to die to the desire to commit suicide, and from this to suicide. As we approach the extreme of death, the experience of suicidal thinking becomes stronger and the risk of self-destruction is higher.