Anyone can experience a suicidal crisis - anyone! It is nothing to be ashamed of. The danger arises when we accept (and believe) that the sheer misery we are living, feeling and experiencing will never leave us alone. That it will never go away. This feeling/belief frequently triggers a suicidal crisis.

When we begin to accept that our pain and unhappiness will simply continue to overwhelm us. To gradually crush the very life out of our bodies, our minds become focused upon the here and now. Not tomorrow, not next week and not next month. Only the here and now – the future ceases to exist. Consequently, it becomes impossible to realise or accept that there could be any chance of any form of future. Especially a happy one. That possibility is already dead.

Another aspect of being trapped in a suicidal crisis is sheer despair. Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness and isolation overwhelm us. The sensation of being trapped in a living nightmare – alone, shunned and unlovable. Is it any wonder that in this hellish condition we have enormous difficulty in believing that anyone can (or would actually want to) help us. This being so, we learn to internalise a suicidal crisis.

A suicidal crisis inevitably leads us to a dark personal crossroads where two 'pathways' remain open. One path requires us to accept the unacceptable - to continue to endure overwhelming emotional pain. It requires us to suffer, seemingly with no chance of recovery.

The other road calls upon us to reject this pain - to put an end to it. To find salvation from suffering by physically destroying the pain. It offers us an end to suffering. 

The choice is stark. This is the suicidal crisis!

For too many people, this rendezvous with fate (and their subsequent decision) is both final and fatal.

Often this life or death choice is portrayed as weak willed people simply not having the moral strength or the desire to continue living. This is not true. We simply do not have the moral strength or the desire to continue living in pain. There is a world of difference!

The fatal life or death decision is... “To suffer or not to suffer”. “To live in pain or not to live in pain”. The decision is never to end life – just to end pain. Anyone going through a suicidal crisis is being overwhelmed by a number of painful 'stressors' which are usually depression related.

• Because these conditions are often unrecognised and undiagnosed they remain untreated and fester. They appear to emotionally prepare us for the inevitable straw that broke the camel’s back. Which is how so many of us actually end up going through a suicidal crisis in the first place.

One doesn't have to be an health service professional to understand that the reasons for suicide are both deep and long standing.

Often the result of years of 'bottling things up', misunderstandings, self-esteem issues, anxieties etc. All of which are treatable. It is when these accumulated unresolved stressors overwhelm our ability to cope with them that we begin to experience a suicidal crisis.