There also seems to be this weird stigma about admitting that you have ever contemplated suicide. People seem to take that as some sort of signal that you are completely unhinged.

Maybe I'm a nutcase, but I've taken the time to prepare a set of scenarios under which I would no longer want to live, and think about what would need to be taken care of to exit the world without undue burden on those that depend on me. That seems like an eminently rational thing to do.

>> ...but I've taken the time to prepare a set of scenarios under which I would no longer want to live, and think about what would need to be taken care of...

I believe professionals would categorize what you wrote there as "planning suicide". So long as you have not started "taking care of" those things you have not begun executing your plan. Planning is a rather big step beyond contemplating - I hope you're doing better now. You may also want to consider that actually getting your affairs in order could be an enabler.

See, this is exactly what I am talking about.

It's evaluating a set of contingencies. Like, the general staffs of armies make war plans that they will never execute, unless the particular parameters fall in place, all the time. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.

I think what is missing is what set of circumstances would trigger you to execute your plans. If it’s “world wide epidemic which causes extreme pain and suffering with less than 5% chance of survival” that is one thing. However if you are planning your suicide in case you lose your job or your significant other cheats on you then that would be concerning and reason to seek help.

There's no need to imagine such an epidemic. We're all going to die. And sometimes that involves extended periods of pain and suffering, with no chance of survival. In civilized places, voluntary euthanasia is available. Elsewhere, one needs to plan ahead.

We need to decouple the concepts of "assisted suicide in cases of terminal illness" (may not be assisted, may not be terminal) from other types of suicide.

The public health responses to you should be very different to the people who experience rapid onset despair.

As a person who lives in the US, this isn't something that I would generally think of if I were considering whether to tell someone that I was planning suicide. Reading your account however, maybe it's something I should be worried about.

There's a lot of issues with this in the US.

When I was a kid my oldest brother enrolled in some free counseling from a church. They had him fill out why he was going to counseling so he honestly wrote down that he had been having suicidal thoughts.

So this church freaked out and sent a pastor and someone else over to force him to promise not to kill himself.

Which as you can imagine was horrible and completely broke his trust in the system.

Also taught me to never ever be honest with people about serious things like suicide unless you've already know how they will react or you think you are a real danger to yourself.

Suicidal thoughts from time to time are fine. The issue is when you start to have real intent to carry them out. That's when you need help.

Telling anybody associated with the government that you're thinking about suicide instantly triggers a type of panic. I think it's very similar to the situation with drug overdoses, where calling for help can often get you into additional trouble. It's very likely, IMO, that there are people who have suicidal ideation but won't talk about it because they don't want to get committed, or worse. Then they don't get any help or advice and feel even more alone and do something that may have been preventable if they'd not been too scared about the consequences of openly talking about it.