Suicide as escape from psychotic panic

Suicides of patients in states of acute persecutory panic may be provoked by a subjective experience of helpless terror threatening imminent annihilation or dismemberment. These patients are literally scared to death and try to run away. They imagine suicide is survivable and desperately attempt to escape from imaginary enemies. These states of terror occur in a wide range of psychotic illnesses and are often associated with command hallucinations and delusions. In this article, the authors consider the subjective experience of persecutory panic and the suicide response as an attempt to flee from danger.