Books & Poems for Suicidal Feelings

If you need to talk to someone right now

United Kingdom & Ireland

Samaritans — call 116 123 (free, 24/7)

France

3114 — Numéro national de prévention du suicide (free, 24/7)

United States

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 (24/7)

Elsewhere

The International Association for Suicide Prevention keeps a directory of crisis centres worldwide at iasp.info

If you are in immediate physical danger, please contact your local emergency services.

A Note Before You Read On

You are not alone in this

Suicidal feelings can arrive for many reasons, and they do not mean you are broken, weak, or beyond help. They are often a sign that the pain you are carrying has become too much to hold by yourself — which is exactly why reaching out, to a crisis line, a doctor, a trusted person, matters more than anything else right now. The words below are offered gently, alongside that support, not instead of it.

Books

For when you are ready

Books written by people who have been in this exact darkness, and are still here.

Reasons to Stay Alive

Matt Haig · 2015

Haig writes from inside the depths of severe depression and suicidal despair, and from the other side of it, with a directness that has helped enormous numbers of readers feel less alone. He does not pretend recovery is simple, but his testimony — that the unbearable feeling did, eventually, become bearable — carries real weight, because he lived through exactly what he is describing.

An Unquiet Mind

Kay Redfield Jamison · 1995

Jamison, a clinical psychologist who lives with bipolar disorder herself, writes with extraordinary honesty about her own suicide attempt and the long road of treatment and stability that followed. Her dual perspective, as both clinician and patient, offers rare insight into both the depths of the illness and the real, hard-won possibility of a full life afterward.

Night Falls Fast

Kay Redfield Jamison · 1999

Jamison’s comprehensive study of suicide combines rigorous research with deep personal and clinical understanding, written for anyone wanting to understand more about what drives suicidal feelings and what is known to genuinely help. It does not shy away from the seriousness of the subject, while remaining ultimately oriented toward prevention, treatment, and hope.

It’s Not Always Depression

Hilary Jacobs Hendel · 2018

Hendel’s work on emotion processing helps explain why unprocessed pain — grief, anger, fear that was never allowed expression — can build into a despair that feels unsurvivable. For readers ready to understand more about what is happening underneath the surface, with professional support, Hendel offers genuine clarity.

Poems about suicidal feelings

For when prose is not enough

Poems written by people who stayed, and who wanted you to know it was possible.

“Do not go gentle into that good night”

Dylan Thomas, 1947

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas wrote this as a plea to his dying father, and it has since become an anthem for holding on against the pull toward giving up, in whatever form that pull takes. It does not deny how hard the fight is. It simply insists the fight is worth having.

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“No feeling is final” (extract from “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”)

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Rilke’s short, often-repeated line — no feeling is final — has been a genuine lifeline for many readers in their darkest moments, a reminder that however permanent this pain feels right now, feelings change, even when it is impossible to believe that in the moment.

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“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers

Emily Dickinson, c.1861

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all.

Dickinson describes hope as something that keeps singing quietly underneath everything else, asking nothing of you, costing you nothing, persisting even when you cannot hear it clearly. It does not need you to believe in it for it to still be there.

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Quotes & Prose

Lines to hold onto

From people who have been exactly where you are, and are still here to say so.

You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.

Martin Luther King Jr.

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The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

Anna Quindlen

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Suicide doesn’t end the chances of life getting worse. It eliminates the possibility of it ever getting better.

Unknown

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Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

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Stay. Just for today, stay. The version of you that exists on the other side of this pain is worth meeting.

Georgia Clare

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From Georgia

If you need somewhere softer to land

Gentle practices for the hardest days — something to hold onto, one breath at a time, at your own pace.

The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice — gently softening how you meet stress, anxiety and overwhelm, one day at a time.

Start the 21-Day Course →

The Inner Peace Toolkit

Digital Self-Care Toolkit · Georgia Clare

2 guided meditations, an Inner Peace Journal, an affirmations eBook, 10 printable affirmation prints and 10 calming phone wallpapers — small daily practices to come back to whenever you need to slow down and reconnect with yourself.

Explore the Toolkit →

Questions people ask

Reading for Suicidal Feelings

Where might I start?

If you can, begin with Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig. He writes from inside suicidal despair and from the other side of it, with a directness that has helped enormous numbers of readers feel less alone. And if a book is too much right now, the poems below are shorter — Rilke’s “No feeling is final” is barely a line, and sometimes a line is all you need to hold onto.

What if I can’t focus on reading right now?

That’s completely normal, and nothing here asks you to push through it. Read a single poem, or one line to keep, or nothing at all — the words will still be here when you have more capacity. You don’t have to read in order, or finish anything.

Can books really help when I feel like this?

Books can’t fix this, and they won’t pretend to. What they can do is keep you company — remind you that other people have stood exactly where you’re standing and found a way through, and that these feelings, as total as they seem, are not the end of the story. But if you’re in danger right now, please don’t wait for a book: the helplines on this page are there for exactly this moment, and reaching out to one of them, or to someone you trust, is the bravest thing you can do.

Suicidal Feelings

You are not alone in this

For when you are ready

For when prose is not enough

Lines to hold onto

If you need somewhere softer to land

Reading for Suicidal Feelings

Where might I start?

What if I can’t focus on reading right now?

Can books really help when I feel like this?

More prescriptions await.