What does 'suicidal' mean?

Answer 1

A person may be judged suicidal when those close to him are afraid that he may be thinking of committing suicide. It is a judgment made by people who care about his welfare and want to help avoid harm to him.

Answer 2

Suicide is when a person takes their own life. Put another way, it means that they made themselves die. Any method used by the person themselves with the intention of dying which causes their death is considered suicide. It is different from an accident, since although a person's actions might have caused a fatal accident, they were not intending to die. If a person jumps in a river to drown, that is suicide. But if they fall in a river, that is an accident, and if they are pushed in and die, it is manslaughter or murder depending on why the person pushed them.

Assisted suicide is when a person wants to die and they ask another person to kill them. Usually, this is someone who is very old, handicapped, or has an incurable disease.

Indirect suicide is when a person deliberately puts themselves in a situation expecting someone else to kill them. That would include things like volunteering to fight in a very bad war and asking for front line combat duty, or shooting at police officers.

People commit suicide for a number of reasons. Common reasons include feeling hopeless, feeling lonely, being depressed, having nothing to live for, getting divorced, being bullied, being disfigured, being terminally ill (like having cancer) or severely injured, wanting to escape the consequences of their actions (like taking ones own life after going on a shooting spree), or mental illness. There are many other reasons too. Some commit suicide over things that may seem small to most people, such as not making a team, not getting a passing grade on an exam, getting dumped by a lover, among other things.