Additional Info
Ninety per cent of people who engage in suicide-related behaviours are experiencing depression, other mental health issues, or have an addiction.
About Hope
A collection of ideas, thoughts and musings on hope.
"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering."
"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."
"What has changed? I have hope now. I know I can help people and that people care about me, and I about them. People listened to me and accepted my thoughts and feelings. I mattered and things mattered (matter) to me.
I am still on medication, still see my therapist once a week and my social worker every two weeks (and he is only a phone call away). I care about people. I even care about me. I want to do things. I want to be here for and with my friends and want to help them be here. I have trained in suicide intervention therapy and hope to teach it. If I have come through this to do nothing else, I can teach others how to cope, and how to help."
"Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into a flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light."
"Hope is a light we keep inside that no one can touch."
"All human wisdom is summed up in two words — wait and hope."
"Suicide is the triumph of pain, fear and loss over hope. Suicide is most often the result of pain, hopelessness and despair. It is almost always preventable through caring, compassion, commitment and community."
"Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope; and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable."
"Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent."
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning."
"I have felt the fear and the pain first-hand. Now I must advocate for my peers. It is what I can do."
"Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead, or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, work for it, and fight for it."
“So I just feel my reason to go on living was to be here for my son and to help him through this too and to try and make him see that life is the most important thing in the world and we will have many storms but we can weather them if we try and of course we will have sunny days too. I wish that there was a way for others like myself to make people who are feeling like committing suicide to realize there are so many special things in life along with the bad and we have to accept that we will experience both situations but at least we are alive to experience them and go on till it is our real time to leave the planet and not leave by our own hands which is so wrong in every way possible.”
“'Where there is life there is hope' is confirmed over and over in our counselling and research. The stories of anguish and triumph we hear show repeatedly that hope begins with a decision to survive. It is like getting married to the adventure of life, for better or for worse. Saying Yes is a decision that I am in for the full trip. Saying Yes to life is much different than saying 'maybe'.”
When you are faced with difficult choices, or situations which have gone on for much too long, try asking yourself: What would a hopeful person do? What would a hopeful person say? How would a hopeful person explain this situation to others? There are times when questions like these make the picture a whole lot clearer. A journey guided by Hope is more manageable than a journey with no guide at all.
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
Something I assume we all share is the desire to be “happy”. It is something we pursue. We search for happiness; things that make us happy. Maybe finding happiness is like looking for our sunglasses. Where could they be? Where did I leave them? We search everywhere and still can’t find them. Eventually we discover that our sunglasses are resting on the top of our head.
Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
THINGS WILL CHANGE. I have realized that suicide is a selfish act that can not be undone. Yeah life might be hard right now but by giving up you don't know what is to come. Stay strong, go to therapy, get the right medication, and accept that life will throw all sorts of crap at you but that you are strong no matter how you feel right now. You've made it this far, don't give up yet. Take care, good luck, and God bless.
Dr. Denise J. Larsen maintains a database of articles and research about hope. Articles are indexed by topic, and there is a large collection of articles about hope and suicide. Click here to visit the home page of the database. Use the Hope-Lit database directory to find many articles on hope and suicide.
We welcome your comments, suggestions and contributions to the Hope page. Click here to contact us.
If you are in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, please click here.