Stop Using the Phrase, "I Am Going to Kill Myself Now"

Like most people, I find those Autocorrect Fail posts hilarious. These posts show screen shots of people who's autocorrect turned a normal text into something highly embarrassing. However, I have noticed an interesting thing in many of these posts. When the texter notices the autocorrect fail, sometimes their next text is something like:

"I am going to jump off a bridge now."

Copyright Bipolar Spirit 2014.

"I am going to kill myself now."

Or check out this one where someone is "literally" going to kill themselves from getting a weird text from her mother, and then her mother tells her not to be "crazy."

I know that these are just people responding to extreme embarrassment and overall this is not a big deal. However, this does tell us something about the way we look at causes of death by suicide.

People who die by suicide do not die because they are embarrassed like what happens with an autocorrected text. It makes no sense that we even joke about killing ourselves when we are embarrassed.

Death by suicide is due to the deepest despair. It is the result of a brain that is broken and has convinced a person of any number of false realities such as: a loss of meaning and purpose in life, the belief that one is a terrible person, unworthy of love, and even your loved ones would be better off without you. Or the belief that you are inherently evil, worthless, or deserve to die. Even that is not a good enough description of it. There is no way to adequately describe such despair, or to know what exact ways in which any one person's brain has created a faulty reality for them. Mental illness manifests differently for every person.

We need to stop using phrases like "I am going to kill myself" so lightly. It's not a joke. It's not an appropriate way to express general embarrassment or incredulity at something. It's a misunderstanding and trivialization of a dangerous illness that is no joking matter.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie