Recently, between the end of 2024 and the start of summer 2025, I lived with many suicidal thoughts. But it wasn’t for the first time.
I remember that the first suicidal thoughts I had were when I was a teenager, at 15-16 years old. But they never came with a specific way of ending my life, and for that I’m grateful. Instead, for me, the suicidal thoughts have always been an inner response to having no resources left to properly deal with the situation I was in and bumping over and over onto the same obstacles.
In a way, through these suicidal thoughts, I wanted everything to end.
But now things are a bit better. Now I’m better, with no suicidal thoughts and with a strong will to live. I became in charge of the meaning I put on the life I live and set a clear direction for what I want to live, which is not connected to material things.
And since I’m still here, I want to share my way of managing suicidal thoughts.
Understand what is triggering your suicidal thoughts
In my case, as I was telling you earlier, the suicidal thoughts were the result of wanting to end it all. But the reasons were more profound than that.
I wanted people not be mean anymore. I wanted the shortcomings to disappear. I wanted to have better relationships. I wanted to be different from what I was. And when I wasn’t able to do anything about any of these things, a strong feeling of helplessness started to surface and it came with suicidal thoughts. I wanted it all to end.
Little by little, I became aware of all these things that were triggering my suicidal thoughts and I started working with them one by one. I realized that, for most of them, I had no control and that helped me relax.
“As long as these things are out of my control, it makes no sense to think about them.”
Therefore, I started reorganizing my thoughts and decided when and where I prioritize thinking. Eventually, I ended up in a place where I am the one giving meaning to the experiences I have and that changed everything. I am in total control of the meaning I give to what I live, and this meaning is guiding my thoughts and feelings.
What are the things that are helping me stay alive
Everything I’m about to share with you are things that have helped me better manage the suicidal thoughts I had in 2024-2025, which I was telling you about at the beginning of this article.
- Music and dance
I think I discovered dancing somewhere in 2017, and since then, I have loved dancing salsa. I remember that when I was feeling down, I used to play a salsa song and things were getting better almost instantly, just like magic.
Whether I was able to dance or not in that moment, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was able to listen to the music I love and that changed my energy and shifted my attention to something else.
- Conversations
While I had around me mean people in such moments (one of them recommended that I should commit suicide – stay away from these kinds of people), there were enough people who knew how to look at my darkest moments with empathy and support me.
There are no specific words that these people said and stayed with me. Instead, when I had the feeling that everything was about to end, these people were making me feel like I should continue. And that made the difference.
- Meditation and books
Just as the conversations I had with others and music and dancing helped, meditation was a fantastic source of help for the moments I had suicidal thoughts.
To be more precise, the meditations from Joe Dispenza, called Blessing of the Energy Centers. For months I meditated daily with these sessions and they helped me a lot.
These meditation sessions, along with books like Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer, or The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, brought me closer to spirituality and that anchored me better in the present moment.
- TV Shows and movies
Just as the books and meditation previously mentioned, there are some TV Shows and movies that had a great impact on the process that helped me change my life.
Here are some of them:
- The Chosen (TV Show)
- Patch Adams (movie)
- The Pope’s Exorcist (movie)
On this list I would also add the Rewired documentary, by Joe Dispenza.
- Junk food
I think that unhealthy, junk food is the oldest coping mechanism I have. With the help of food, I better manage stress and intense emotions that I’m not capable of managing on my own.
But junk food is dangerous because it has a lot of sugar and sugar brings a lot of health problems and it’s not worth it for the dopamine they offer.
I had moments where the food I ate put me in a toxic loop where, because of the food I was eating I was gaining weight, and gaining weight was making me depressed.
All these ways of managing my suicidal thoughts were very useful in between the moments I was experiencing suicidal thoughts. Because when I was in the middle of these moments, whatever I tried it didn’t work. Maybe just the junk food…
I eventually realized that the best thing I could do in the middle of these moments was to do nothing. And that was the hardest thing.
With love and optimism,
David
