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Dr Sacrifice Chirisa Mental Health Matters
Suicide is the taking of one’s own life. This discourse is intended to educate readers about the nature of suicide.

If you are seriously considering committing suicide right now, you do not need education about the nature of suicide, you need immediate support from caring people who can help you get through this crisis and rediscover the meaning of your life.

You need to stop everything else and get help as soon as possible; no matter how badly you feel, because otherwise, you may kill yourself in short order.

If you are seriously suicidal right now and you know that you will harm yourself PLEASE take the following steps:

Go to the nearest 24hr clinic or have a friend or family member take you there and tell the admitting staff there that you are “acutely suicidal”. You need to be seen by a psychiatrist or psychologist immediately.

Suicidal ideation is a term used in mental health to describe suicidal thoughts and feelings without suicidal actions.

For example, people experiencing suicidal ideation commonly report that they feel worthless, that life is not worth living, and that the world would be better off without them.

The presence of suicidal ideation, occurring alone in the absence of any plans to act out actual suicide, anchors the low/less-dangerous end of the suicide risk continuum. The potential for someone engaging in suicide is still there, but the risk is not acute. Even though suicidal ideation is considered less serious than actual suicide attempts, it can be a real cause for concern.

The fact that suicidal ideation is occurring within an individual suggests a very real possibility that suicide could occur should circumstances become worse and stress levels mount. Anyone who has suicidal ideation is at some risk of becoming actively suicidal.

Suicidal ideation is only dangerous to the extent that it motivates suicidal planning and actions. Moving from thinking about suicide to considering a specific suicidal plan represents an increase in the level of suicide-danger risk, no matter whether the plans made are concrete or vague; organised, or haphazard. When suicidal actions occur, the level of suicide-danger risk increases.

Actual attempts to kill yourself are labelled “suicidal gestures” or “suicide attempts” in mental health no matter how ineffective those attempts may ultimately be.

Suicidal gestures may be acted out with full lethal intent, or they may be acted out half-heartedly, more as a means of communicating the depths of your pain to others around you than an actual effort to end your life.

Regardless of the intent and degree of seriousness that motivates them, suicidal gestures are often dangerous events. Even ambivalent, half-hearted suicidal gestures can result in a completed suicide.

It is important for everyone to be alert to the vague signs, but representing a real threat. I lost friends, relatives, church mates and most of the time we did not take the threat seriously or ignored the signs. This information can save a life.

Dr Sacrifice Chirisa is a passionate Consultant Psychiatrist at Harare Hospital Psychiatric Unit. He is the National Secretary-General for the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMA). A certified Life and Business coach.