According to Freud all suicides contemplate both a wish to die, to express a pressure to self-destruction that cannot be worked through, and the intent to harm anyone the suicidal person thinks has caused the unbearable pain leading them to self-imposed death.

In general, those who kill themselves rarely wish to stop living: more often they try to introduce some desired or wanted change in their lives through their act. They want to suffer an unbearable pain no longer, and the others to be more caring about their needs.

Those who commit suicide with hostile intent clearly want to end a pain that originated from a wrong that cannot be persecuted by law, or which is seen as such. Another wish is to cause some suffering on the one(s) who is/are thought having caused the wrong : their death is expected in the “Samsonic” variant of this class, whereas in the suicidal assault by “devotio” the main aim is to cause the largest panic and shock among the opponents. In any case, the act is often matched by an intense emotional turmoil including anger, hopelessness and, paradoxically, bliss.

Anger is, in all likelihood, the basic emotion in this class of destructive acts, and sets the mind to aggression. In general, suicide ideation relates to propensity to aggression : people with a high level of expressed aggression and hostility bear a greater risk of dying by suicide and other violent causes.

To achieve this result, the individual contemplating suicide with hostile intent has to feel fully hopeless on the possibility to face the threat with other means than his/her own sacrifice. Hopelessness, indeed, is the most important cognitive antecedent of suicidal behaviour, and it is thought to boost suicide ideation when matched with the conviction that the originating situation cannot be changed.

(Study) Preti, Antonio. « On Killing by self-Killing : Suicide with a hostile intent », Études sur la mort, vol. 130, no. 2, 2006, pp. 89-104.

I’ve been reflecting about my suicide attempt last year. Either I didn’t want to admit it, or I didn’t truly understand, that the true reason why I attempted suicide last year was not because I wanted to end my life, it was because I wanted to hurt the person that hurt me. I wanted to do it out of spite. I wanted to make him live the rest of his life knowing he drove me to suicide and I did it because of him. I wanted him to feel haunted for the rest of his life. I wanted him to be and feel responsible for my death. I wanted his heart to wrench in anguish and feel the gripping pain that held me that day – for the rest of his life. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him so deeply and so cruelly that he would regret ever hurting me. I never wanted to end my life. I wanted to end his life. I wanted him to hurt so much that he would never be able to carry on past my death; never be able to love again; never be able to get me off his mind. I wanted to scar him.