anyone know someone who killed themselves ?

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I knew four people who did. I don't know if they were Autistic though. I know that two of them were bipolar and I know that one had issues even though I don't know what the specific issues were. That one was my first cousin. The fourth I knew as a young child and as far as I know, I don't think he had any issues like Autism or Bipolar.

Yes, someone extremely close to me in adult life, and a girl at school. The common factor between them was overwhelming pain, which they wanted to end, not autism.

On the subject...

I've read a figure like 66% of surveyed persons with AS have thought of ending their life, and 35% have planned or attempted it. Those figures don't include the dead, correct?

There is a compelling body of evidence that all minority groups show a higher rate of suicidal ideation than normative (dominant majority) samples. Simply belonging to a minority group increases risk for suicidal thinking. This finding is consistent with minority stress theory (Meyer 1995) which notes that members of minority groups are more exposed (and more frequently exposed) to damaging stressors, including prejudice, discrimination, and oppression (Hayes et al 2011).

I've known two good friends who killed themselves. I had a high regard for both of them. The first was very good at making me and others feel at ease, and taught me some good social skills by deeds rather than words, the second did a lot for me too. Very bright guys, I guess they just didn't realise how much their friends thought of them, and their friends (self included) didn't communicate that high regard well enough. For their part, they hid their tortured inner selves too well from us. What a senseless waste.

One good friend. Her body was found in a stream in the Smokies exactly one year ago tomorrow. It still hurts!

My ex-fiancée committed suicide in 1998. She was probably Borderline.

Several , but you know, only one had any health or mental problem, the rest were normal.

At least with my second cousin; he was dusting and thought he was covered with spiders. He was trying to shoot them, neighbors heard it going on. He was only like 19. Of the 8 , 2 used firearms, 2 hung themselves; the rest OD. Kinda gruesome to recall.

While entangled in terrible DV relationship I made attempt, and failed by sheer luck. Never though that far into it again. Sure I sometimes think I'd be better off dead. But after that I think but what if my turn in the sun was coming mere weeks ahead. So my mantra for that feeling of depression is "death is end of solutions to a temporary problem"

I don't know whether I would medicalise my two friends or not. Both were under a lot of pressure from unfortunate social environmental factors, but outwardly gave the appearance of stability, albeit coloured with eccentricity. They seemed more stuck in unhealthy situations than stuck with unhealthy minds, though the less reassuring / "socially impressive" one had once told me he'd tried to take his own life once before, and his obsession with Doctor Who, his strange mixture of social skills and unduly confrontational tendencies, his lengthy written communication style and his living alone and apparent asexuality made me wonder if he was on the spectrum, which of course isn't what I'd call evidence of an unhealthy mind, just eccentricity. The first guy had lots of friends and was warm, the second was somewhat cold and had many contacts but not so many friends. I got the impression that both were extremely able people who were pretty much killed by society.

Medical definitions gloss over the sad fact of tragic life circumstances, and there are people whose life events are so unlucky and so painful (some quadriplegics, for example) that suicide is their considered choice. I have observed this at very close range (unfortunately) and the person I am thinking of was deeply distressed by people who dismissively said "that's just your depression speaking though". Nope, it wasn't just a diagnosis speaking - it was a human being who had suffered and was suffering terribly.

^ Yes, R.D.Laing brought that appalling problem to society's attention a long time ago, but I think it's still going on in spades.

One of my last conversations with him - not the last - was about how unafraid of death he was. After 16 months of suffering the impositions of quadriplegia, death held no fears for him, and he saw that other people projected their own fear of dying onto his personal circumstances. That is a possibility which is rarely considered, that people are unaware of how they may be doing that it seems to me. It intensified his suffering, and he knew that many of those same people would see it very differently if they could project themselves into his shoes, so to speak. But they couldn't, so they didn't. They were "only trying to help" in a profoundly unhelpful way. They were unable to help themselves ie not force that view upon him.

One of my rare High School friends shot himself in the head.

Happened to one of my friends a few years ago before I learned about the reality of the Psychiatric-Industry and how Prozac is actually a Schedule II Narcotic in the sense that its withdrawal-symptoms are severe when quit Cold-Turkey. I am not sure if he was an Autistic or Neuro-Typical or not but I think I was his only close friend. For that matter I may have even been his only/best friend at the time but our time was unfortunately short-lived.

My grandma on my mom's side committed suicide, but she wasn't autistic, but at the time was going through a nasty divorce.

An uncle on my dad's side committed suicide because he was gay, and my grandparents were extremely devout Catholics who would have disowned him if he ever came out to them. I consider it a suicide, but he basically drank himself to death. He wasn't autistic at all, just gay in a Catholic family.

Personally I have an extremely strong survival instinct that will probably always keep me from trying to kill myself, even if on an emotional basis I want to be dead. Often that translates as wishing I had never been born in the first place.

I have known of people, like a couple of former classmates who committed suicide, but not anyone I have known personally.