What Happens After Surviving A Suicide Attempt? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

At the time of writing, it’s suicide awareness month, and typically whenever we think about suicide, we only think about the signs and symptoms that a person is suicidal. Equally, we think about the loss, heartbreak and sadness that follows a successful suicide attempt. However, the majority of suicide attempts are not successful and the aftermath of a suicide attempt can be difficult, distressing and heartbreaking for everyone involved. As someone who’s survived three suicide attempts, I want to explore the facts and findings of what happens after surviving a suicide attempt whilst I bring the subject to life with my own experiences. Therefore, by the end of this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what happens after surviving a suicide attempt, how to support someone after a suicide attempt and what to do if you’ve survived a suicide attempt. If you enjoy learning about mental health, psychotherapy and suicide risk, then this will be a great episode for you.

Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Healing As A Survivor: A Personal and Clinical Psychology Guide To Healing From Sexual Violence. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Note: nothing on this podcast is ever any sort of official advice. Please reach out to a mental health service or suicide hotline if you’re suicidal.

What Happens After Surviving A Suicide Attempt?

The only silver lining we can take from the topic of suicide is that there are a lot more suicide attempts than completed suicides, but this does nothing to bring comfort to all of us impacted by suicide. According to the United States’ Centres for Disease Control, in 2019, there were 47,500 completed suicides compared to 1.4 million suicide attempts, and it’s important to remember that suicide is greatly underreported. For example, my three suicide attempts in 2024 were not recorded or registered with any healthcare provider or similar agency.

This suggests that less than 5% of suicide attempts are fatal.

Personally, what’s interesting about this statistic is that within clinical psychology, mental health and wider society, there is a massive focus on suicide prevention and supporting the friends and loved ones that are left behind after a completed suicide. Yet there is very little teaching on what to do after a suicide attempt. Of course, as a suicide survivor myself, I understand that the focus absolutely has to be on prevention. In my experience, if the focus wasn’t on prevention as much as it was, I would have tried to complete a successful suicide attempt way, way before 2024.

Nonetheless, this lack of focus on what to do and how to support clients after a suicide attempt can lead to negative treatment of clients. For example, in my book, Healing As A Survivor, I talk about how my specialist rape counsellor didn’t react very well to my suicide revelation. It made me feel isolated, alone and it didn’t make me feel supported.

Building upon this, people who attempt suicide and survive often require a lot of mental health support afterwards. Personally, I would highly, highly recommend that the person who attempted suicide should definitely seek out mental health support so they can heal, get support and find more adaptive ways to cope with life’s stressors.

Another silver lining is that research shows that whilst people who attempt suicide can continue to struggle with their mental health after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. The majority of these people do not try another suicide attempt and the Centre for Disease Control finds that more than 90% of people who survived a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.

Thankfully, that suggests there is hope for a great life after surviving a suicide attempt.

How Do Survivors Feel After a Suicide Attempt?

Before I talk about what the research says, personally after my three suicide attempts, I felt really depressed, annoyed and slightly happy that I had been unsuccessful. I had wanted to kill myself because of my anxiety, my PTSD and all the other trauma responses I was having after my rape. I had no quality of life, I believed my life was beyond awful and there was no way I would ever heal and get better and I believed that my rapist had stolen everything from me.

I firmly believed the only way to stop the pain, the agony and the trauma was just to kill myself.

After I failed three different times with different methods, I felt guilty that I had hurt my friends and support system, I felt depressed because I was still hurting and in agony because of everything my rapist had done to me and I felt isolated. Again, that’s another symptom of depression.

Building upon this, the emotions that a survivor experiences after surviving a suicide attempt can be wide ranging. Some survivors might be sad, others might feel relief and others might feel anger or regret that they weren’t successful. As well as there are some survivors that immediately have thoughts of trying a second attempt and then they experience immense feelings of relief because they survived.

Personally, the gap between my first attempt and my second and third was about a week or two and I think at first after the first suicide attempt, I did feel relief and sad and isolation. Yet over time as my mental health was still bad, my life still wasn’t worth living as far as I was concerned and I was still dealing with all the trauma responses, I just started to think more and more about a second then third attempt.

Some survivors feel guilt that they survived their first suicide attempt because they believe they are still a burden on others, and other survivors still, believe that their suicide attempt allowed them to “snap out” of their suicidal thoughts and despair.

In addition, some suicide survivors feel like they’re given a new lease on life and these survivors are typically able to return to their lives with a sense of gratitude. Personally, I feel like it took months for me to reach this point in my life and for the past few months, I really have been focusing on gratitude, being grateful to be alive and just enjoying the small moments. For example, a few days ago, the sun was shining, the golden light looking really pretty on the vibrant green leaves and I allowed myself to enjoy the pretty sight.

I couldn’t experience that simple moment of joy if I wasn’t alive.

On the other hand, other survivors are not so positive about their survival. Some people who survive a suicide attempt feel regret, depressed and even disappointed after their survival. I think I went through something similar after my first suicide attempt. Thankfully, some research shows that these feelings will decrease for the majority of survivors but they might indicate that the individual is still at risk of suicidal thoughts and future suicide attempts.

This is why mental health support is so important.

How To Support Someone After A Suicide Attempt?

If a friend or family member or someone else you know has survived a suicide attempt then you might be scared, confused or angry at them. It is a normal and understandable reaction because you’re scared that you’ll lose someone you care about, love and enjoy spending time with. I completely understand how scary this must be because there have been plenty of people in my life who I would be devastated by if they had a successful suicide attempt. As well as if one of my friends or family members had tried to end their life then I would be scared for them.

Additionally, after a suicide attempt, you might be asking yourself why your friend or loved one tried to end their life or if there was something you could have done to prevent it. Again, these are normal and good questions to think about and there are no easy answers. Yet the most important thing that you can do for your friend or loved one is to provide them support and being with them is often a key, critical part of recovery.

Nonetheless, something I want to stress here is that it is so important that as much as you love, support and care about your friend or loved one who survived their suicide attempt. You need to look after yourself too. You are going to have to process your feelings, practice self-care, put up boundaries and manage your own mental health too. Believe me, from personal experience as a suicide survivor, there is nothing worse than having someone you rely on for mental health support suddenly backing off because they didn’t realise how badly your suicide attempt and your recovery was impacting them.

I’m pretty sure this is why I tried my second and third suicide attempt.

Therefore, when you learn that your friend or loved one has survived a suicide attempt, it’s important that you know this isn’t about saying the right thing. In this moment in time, what your friend or loved one needs from you is your support, they need you to be there for them and just see what they’re most comfortable with.

It’s very unlikely that a friend or loved one wants to lose their autonomy, their freedom and their ability to make decisions for themselves after a suicide attempt. This is why honest and open conversations between you and your loved one are so important.

A practical, yet unofficial, tip might be check in with the suicide survivor regularly, tell them that you’re thinking of them and if the survivor wants to talk about the suicide attempt then please, make an effort to listen. Of course, this will be hard, it will be emotionally draining and it might trigger some really difficult emotions for you. Yet it’s important in these situations to create an empathetic and non-judgemental space and definitely ask open-ended questions and give the survivor the space to sort through their difficult feelings after the suicide attempt.

Something that I realise now, looking back, is that I didn’t really have a safe, empathetic environment for me to deal with my emotions after my first suicide attempt. Again, this was probably a major factor in why I did my second and third suicide attempt. At the time, the people in my life were struggling with the realisation that I had tried a suicide attempt, they were backing off because of their own mental health and when we did speak about it, I actually realise now I didn’t feel safe enough to be completely vulnerable about why I wanted to kill myself. And as much as the particular friend said they were great at mental health talks, they weren’t validating, they didn’t ask me what I needed and they focused on their fear.

That only actually made me feel like more of a burden. And I distinctly remember writing in my book, Healing As A Survivor, either before or after the first suicide attempt that I wanted to kill myself because I had hurt my friends.

Anyway, when supporting a suicide survivor, you can ask him or her or them directly, if they’re thinking of hurting themselves again and if they’re struggling with suicidal thoughts. These are two good questions to ask because as I discuss in Suicide Psychology, no one actually wants to do a suicide attempt. We try to end our lives because we don’t feel like we have another way out. Therefore, by asking these questions and wanting to tackle these topics head-on, you’re giving a suicidal person exactly what they want and need. A chance to talk about their feelings, their life and hopefully, you’ll be able to find solutions together.

So a suicide attempt isn’t needed.

Furthermore, as you might imagine, expressing your anger towards the suicide survivor in your life isn’t helpful because it will only undermine your loved one’s recovery and it will add more so-called “evidence” that they’re a burden. This is why it’s important that you find a more productive and healthier way to cope with your feelings like talking to a therapist or a support group for families or friends of suicide survivors or another trusted friend or family member.

One of the best things you can do for a suicide survivor is to manage your own complicated emotions so you can support the survivor in recovery without getting burnt out.

A final set of unofficial tips is that you can help your friend or loved one find a therapist or another form of mental health support as well as encourage them to take part in exercise and other healthy habits. For example, getting plenty of sleep, self-care and eating a balanced diet.

How To Get Support After a Suicide Attempt?

It’s okay that you attempted suicide. There is no shame in it. I know what it’s like to hate your life so much, see the world as such a dark and hopeless place that death by suicide seems like the only way out. I also know that you didn’t want to do a suicide attempt and if you saw another way out then you would have tried it. I know that suicide is always a last resort and you see it as a mercy so you aren’t a burden on your friends and family members anymore.

And sometimes suicide can just seem like a way to end all the awful pain that we experience on a daily basis.

I understand it all as supported by my three suicide attempts, but I am so happy that I wasn’t successful.

I smile as I write this section because I really am so happy that I didn’t kill myself in 2024. If I had killed myself then I wouldn’t have finished the clinical psychology MSc that I flat out loved, I wouldn’t have met my beautiful ex-partner and I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our relationship whilst it lasted and I wouldn’t have been able to have sex for the first time with someone else. All of those life events seemed flat out impossible after my rape and that’s why I wanted to kill myself.

Thankfully, my life is amazing, fun and I am so happy to be alive.

Yet I also know after a suicide attempt, life doesn’t always feel that great.

As a result, after a suicide attempt, you might be feeling a lot of conflicting emotions like I spoke about towards the beginning of the podcast episode. And you might be annoyed or depressed that even after the suicide attempt, you are still dealing with a lot of mental health struggles or social challenges that made you want to end your life by suicide in the first place. This is why I highly recommend that you reach out to mental health services after a suicide attempt.

It will be scary, you might be nervous about being judged and you might think you’ll be locked up forever if you reveal your suicide attempt to mental health services. Please reach out and get professional support because it will be so important to your suicide recovery.

Also, seek out support from your loved ones or friends. Especially, because after a suicide attempt, it can be so tempting to just shut yourself away from the world, hide in your bedroom and cut everyone off out of shame or another emotion. Yet experts agree that after suicide, social connection is so important to your recovery. Also, your friends or loved ones are likely to be very worried about you and they want to help, so please reach out to them. Friends and family members can also be good sources of support if you tell them how you’re hurting, how you’re struggling and what you need from them in turn.

In the longer-term, it can be helpful for suicide survivors to find a sense of purpose and meaning because this can help survivors recover from despair. This is different for everyone. For example, as a podcaster and author, I find sharing my story, writing and learning to give me a lot of purpose so I don’t want to end my life by suicide. You might decide to do something completely different, because some research shows the survivors that don’t go on to die by suicide, they end up citing their desire to help others and contribute to society are important protective factors against further suicidal thoughts.

Overall, finding meaning can be a critical step towards recovery.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

As dark as talking about suicide is, especially after the past year with my experience of three suicide attempts, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed today’s podcast episode. Not only because as I mentioned earlier, educating others and telling my story about suicide and how recovery is possible act as protective factors against further suicidal thoughts for me. But because this episode helped me to realise a few factors behind my suicide attempts and how I didn’t get the support I needed after my first attempt and that led me to do a second and third suicide attempt.

Ultimately at the end of this psychology podcast episode, my message is clear, if you’ve survived a suicide attempt then please reach out to mental health support. And as a survivor myself, please know that healing, recovery and thriving after a suicide attempt is possible. I have had so many fun experiences from hanging out with friends, playing fun games, having sex, having a partner, writing great stories, reading wonderful books and learning so many fascinating concepts that I flat out love being alive.

I couldn’t have done any of these experiences if my suicide attempts were successful. Therefore, I know how hard it is, I know how much pain you’re in and I know how much easier it seems to simply end it all. But please, reach out to mental health support, start your recovery journey and let your friends and family members support you.

Life gets better, trust me.

I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

If you want to learn more, please check out:

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Healing As A Survivor: A Personal and Clinical Psychology Guide To Healing From Sexual Violence. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

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Have a great day.

Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading

Al-Harrasi, A., Al Maqbali, M., & Al-Sinawi, H. (2016). Surviving a suicide attempt. Oman Medical Journal, 31(5), 378.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/suicide/surviving-a-suicide-attempt

Maple, M., Frey, L. M., McKay, K., Coker, S., & Grey, S. (2020). “Nobody hears a silent cry for help”: Suicide attempt survivors’ experiences of disclosing during and after a crisis. Archives of suicide research, 24(4), 498-516.

Oexle, N., Herrmann, K., Staiger, T., Sheehan, L., Rüsch, N., & Krumm, S. (2019). Stigma and suicidality among suicide attempt survivors: A qualitative study. Death studies.

Parra-Uribe, I., Blasco-Fontecilla, H., Garcia-Parés, G., Martínez-Naval, L., Valero-Coppin, O., Cebrià-Meca, A., ... & Palao-Vidal, D. (2017). Risk of re-attempts and suicide death after a suicide attempt: a survival analysis. BMC psychiatry, 17(1), 163.

Tong, B., Kashdan, T. B., Joiner, T., & Rottenberg, J. (2021). Future well-being among people who attempt suicide and survive: Research recommendations. Behavior Therapy, 52(5), 1213-1225.

Williams, S. M., Frey, L. M., Stage, D. R. L., & Cerel, J. (2018). Exploring lived experience in gender and sexual minority suicide attempt survivors. American journal of orthopsychiatry, 88(6), 691.

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