Psychological profile of a suicidal person

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death from external factors worldwide, this phenomenon is closely linked to serious psychological problems and personality disorders that must be identified in time to avoid fatal outcomes. Once we determine these problems, we can try to prevent future behavior and suicide attempts.

A person with suicidal tendencies usually follows a certain pattern of behaviors and thoughts, although it is true that there are individual differences and different triggers, we can learn to identify a person with suicidal characteristics before making any dangerous attempt autolytic. If you want to know what is the psychological profile of a suicidal personWe invite you to continue reading this Psychology-Online article.

Index

1. Suicidal personality traits
2. What a suicidal mind thinks
3. Relationship between suicide and depression
4. Treatment after a suicide attempt

Is there a type of personality more prone to suicide?

The answer is yes. Suicidal behavior It is a phenomenon that has been studied in depth, with these investigations it has been possible to establish typical personality patterns in suicidal individuals. Among these patterns, we highlight the following:

• Impulsiveness: One of the main factors that triggers self-injurious behaviors is impulsivity. By not thinking twice about the danger of this type of act, many people end up hurting themselves and even regretting it later.
• Low self-esteem: Feeling less than others can trigger tendencies and thoughts related to disappearing and escaping from the world at large.
• Few social skills: a factor in preventing suicidal behavior is the fact of being surrounded by people who support us and take care, the lack of social skills leads to a weaker support network and less help from people dear.
• Feelings of loneliness: Related to the previous point, when we do not have many people who can care for or support us, suicidal thoughts can come with more intensity. Feeling alone when we are going through difficult times can make us think that we are expendable and that nothing bad would happen if we died.
• Lack of coping strategies: We all go through difficult times in our lives. However, we are able to get ahead thanks to different personal tools, resilience and inner strength. The lack of these types of strategies can cause many behaviors related to suicide to appear since it is established as a solution to all problems.

It is very difficult to understand why a person commits suicide, what kind of thoughts can someone have to go against their own survival instinct?

As we have commented previously, there are some psychological patterns and traits very characteristic in people who have thought about or tried to commit suicide. These traits can form very specific thoughts that feed suicidal feelings and impulses, some of the things that a suicidal mind can think are:

• Nobody loves Me
• I am an expendable person for others
• I do everything wrong, nothing is worth doing with my life
• If I disappear, no one would notice
• Only death can make my inner pain fade

If you know someone who has expressed these thoughts or you have been able to think about it yourself, it is vitally important that you go to a specialist to be able to treat this problem effectively.

Personality disorder and suicide

There is another high risk factor for suicide: BPD or Borderline personality disorder. This disorder is characterized by a pattern of impulsive behaviors, difficulty empathizing with other people, feelings of loneliness, and turbulent and unstable personal relationships.

Suicide attempts in patients diagnosed with this disorder are the first cause of hospitalization for these individuals. Furthermore, the percentage of completed suicide in these patients rises to 10%. That is, one in ten people with borderline personality disorder ends their life. These alarming data can serve as a signal to start treating people with BPD correctly.

Depression has been the disease most associated with suicidal behavior. In Mexico, the national prevalence of depression in the adult population in 2004 was 4.5%¹

The characteristic features of a depressive episode coincide highly with the psychological profile of a suicidal person: negative thoughts towards oneself, frustration with life, feelings of loneliness... all this seems to encourage an individual to want to end her life.

Although depression is highly related to suicide, there are many other mental pathologies that drive and fuel suicidal thoughts, for example, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or the aforementioned TLP.

It is important to point out that the majority of disease conditions are not "pure". That is, a person usually presents different characteristic problems of one psychopathology or another and these interact with each other. That is why it is difficult to establish with precision and exact figures a relationship between suicide and specific mental illnesses.

It may be the case that someone has tried to commit suicide and this may surprise us. We may not have paid enough attention to the red flags, yet we still have time to help that person.

What is the protocol to follow after a suicide attempt?

In this case, there are quite specific guidelines to be able to prevent a person from trying to kill themselves again. The first step is based on receiving clinical care and medical care to establish a certain physiological stability.

Second, a team of experts is in charge of psychiatrically evaluate the person and refer him to the most appropriate services for the type of help he needs. In these cases, when someone has already tried to commit suicide, they are usually prescribed some type of medication to contain and control suicidal thoughts or ideations.

If we know someone in our environment who is going through a similar situation and we want to help them, we can do the following:

1. Suggest that visit a specialist so that you receive professional care
2. Give you guidelines and strategies to improve your social skills
3. Help you nurture your personal strengths
4. show you what you are not alone and that, with a little effort, you can live a full and happy life

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Psychological profile of a suicidal person, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

1. Espinosa, J. J., Grynberg, B. B., & Mendoza, M. P. R. (2009). Suicidal risk and fatality in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), in a psychiatric hospital. Mental Health, 32 (4), 317-325.