Maybe you could find a place that needs help, or an older person you know that needs some company. Or find a hoby.....ugh, I took up painting & when I focus on that, my mind doesn't think of anything else....same with my beading, or baking or cooking something for someone you know. Those coping skills didn't work because you weren't able to do them. Coping skills only work if you actually do them & you need to have many different ones in case some aren't possible like not having money to go to the movies, or friends not being available or a broken TV....it's obvious those weren't coping skills you could rely on.....you definitely need some coping skills that only depend on yourself.

I have to admit that sometimes when I get done with my coping skill, my feelings go right back to where they were....but then I just need to find another coping skill until I can finally crash exhausted in bed.

I also have to admit....when I was major suicidal those many years (many years ago now), coping skills didn't work because I didn't want them to most of the time....& the only thing that could break my cycle of thinking was the hospital. I think that with the DBT that I am now involved in with therapy, it would have made a huge difference in how I was able to deal with myself during those years.....but I only think it would....I don't really know....but I wouldn't want to go back there to that thinking in order to test it. I am at a different place now. Realized it wasn't just the loss of my career situation that was causing my major depression & once I left my husband, a huge weight lifted off of me.

Do you have something that is weighing down on you that keeps you feeling the depression? Know for some it's all the chemical imbalance in the brain, but for some of us, our environment really played a critical role in the suicidal feelings.....something I just realized not long ago....many years after those feelings had passed but had no understanding of them at the time.