What is a normal amount to think about suicide? (suicide cw obviously)

So all I know is that in health class at some point in school during the mental health unit, the teacher mentioned that a certain amount of depression/suicidal thinking is normal. I'm looking for a qualifier, or a refutation - is this true, and if so, how much is considered standard?

Followup question: how exactly does one potentially bring this up to a therapist? Do you just blurt out "I'm 100% suicidal" and roll with it? I have no idea how this works.

 

The explanation I saw, can't remember from where, is that a healthy person might have an occasional "what if I [insert dangerous, life-threatening action here]" thought, but they can easily dismiss it, and it doesn't come around that often. But I'd categorize that more as an intrusive thought than actual suicidal thinking, and I feel like people who are suicidal view "suicidal thoughts" differently from people who aren't suicidal. (It doesn't look like a word anymore, huh.) So I feel like "everyone is suicidal sometimes" is a weird miscommunication.

There's a scale I think therapists use based on the level of suicidal ideation based on whether a person has a concrete plan and that sort of thing. If you want a test run of talking to your therapist, you could practice with a hotline, or straight-up ask them how you should start that sort of conversation.

Witnessed, though, this shit suuuuuucks.

 

yeah, my understanding is that generally speaking, healthy people do not have serious recurring thoughts of wanting to die. if they're in the middle of something awful they might briefly think 'this sucks, i wish i were dead', but that thought will pass quickly and it won't be a constant thing. they will definitely not be considering methods, how to say goodbyes, making arrangements, etc.

my experience with therapists is that when you talk about suicide, they assess things by the level of immediate risk and ask questions. some of them are just asking you to tell them how often and intense suicidal urges are (which for me can be hard to explain, can't speak for anyone else) and others are more along the lines of do you have a plan for how you would carry out a suicide attempt, do you have access to what you'd need to go through with that plan, are you making arrangements for your death and what happens to your possessions afterwards, is there anyone who's aware of what's going on you could talk to, is there anything you can do to make the urge less intense.

 

i think the only time in my life i ever thought "i wish i were dead" was when i was like seven, and it was a lot more about punishing people and making them sorry they'd treated me badly and now they missed me. i didn't imagine death itself as it pertained to me. and considering that i had to deal with severe ungoing bullying until age eighteen... i have severe social anxiety and probably some depression but i'm just not wired for suicidal thought. most people i know are not either, and from talking about the topic they don't really grasp the feeling of wanting to be dead long-term/forever, beyond avoiding a horrible/painful moment (but still wanting the rest of their life, and knowing the moment passes) or being angry at people and wanting to punish them with their absence, or things like that. not-usually-suicidal people usually need something to the level of losing their spouse or child before they start wishing they were dead in earnest, and even then the grieving process usually smoothes that out with time.