12 Quotes by David L. Conroy

Suicidal pain includes the feeling that one has lost all capacity to effect emotional change. The agony is excruciating and looks as if it will never end. There is the feeling of having been beaten down for a very long time. There are feelings of agitation, emptiness, and incoherence. 'Snap out of it and get on with your life,' sounds like a demand to high jump ten feet.

Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.

Self-destructive behaviors do not exist because there is a force within us that tries to hasten our return to an inorganic state; they exist because they provide short-term relief from pain that threatens to become intolerable.

Despair, grief, and depression are not things that people can simply stop, any more than someone can will an end to a toothache or the pain of withdrawal. Acutely suicidal people have lost all sense of having power over their pain. To tell them to magically acquire will power is like asking a crippled person to race against a champion. It does not help them do the thing in question; it just makes them feel worse.

Do human beings have an infinite amount of energy with which to resist death? It is kinder and more accurate to say that they fought until they had no more fight left in them.

The suicidal lead shame-drenched lives.

Suicidal pain includes the feeling that one has lost all capacity to effect emotional change. The agony is excruciating and looks as if it will never end. There is the feeling of having been beaten down for a very long time. There are feelings of agitation, emptiness, and incoherence. "Snap out of it and get on with your life," sounds like a demand to high jump ten feet.

To be subjected to pain that threatens to exceed coping resources is not something that people choose.

Even if we accept the view that biochemical imbalances may contribute to depression and suicide, it is a mistake to assume that the biochemical aspect of the problem is entirely within the victim. It is also partly within the physiological makeup of the people around the suicide.