Most of the time people who suicide are very sick with depression or one of the other types of depressive illnesses, which occur when the chemicals in a person’s brain get out of balance or become disrupted.
Healthy people do not suicide. A person who has depression does not think like a typical person who is feeling good. Their illness prevents them from being able to look forward to anything. They can only think about now and have lost the ability to imagine into the future. Many times they don’t realise they are suffering from a treatable illness and they feel they can’t be helped. Seeking help may not even enter their mind. They do not think of the people around them, family or friends, because of their illness. They are consumed with emotional and physical pain that becomes unbearable. They don’t see any way out. They feel hopeless and helpless. They don’t want to die but its the only way they feel their pain will end. It is a non-rational choice.
Getting depression is involuntary, no one asks for it, just like people don’t ask to get cancer. Depression is a treatable illness and people can feel good again.
Depression plus alcohol or drug use, can be lethal. Many times people will try to alleviate the symptoms of their illness by drinking or using drugs. Alcohol and/or drugs will make the illness worse. There is an increased risk for suicide because alchol and drugs decrease judgement and increase impulsivity.
I very rarely drink alcohol because it is a depressant. I find that if I drink alcohol, the very next morning I feel depressed.
I never take drugs either. A friend of mine uses cannabis to alleviate her bipolar disorder. Cannabis does not actually alleviate mental illness, it makes it worse. There is evidence that cannabis use causes psychosis and the mere breathing in of cannabis smoke is enough to affect the passive smoker who can experience a “high” from the smoke. Traces of cannabis can be found in body fluids as a result of passive cannabis smoking however little is known about the short or long term effects of passive cannabis smoking. I have been a passive cannabis smoker in my younger years. Had I known then what I know now I would never have let myself be susceptible to the possible dangers of passive cannabis smoking.
Rapid Cycling 