Suicidal Ideation As Search For A Passage

[WillyKat]

As some of you know, I'm writing a book about my lifetime struggle w/ PTSD and learning to heal through intense wilderness experiences. Over the past year or so, I've been thinking a lot about the suicidal ideation (SI) I've had over the years.

It seems to me that whenever I had a lot of SI as a teenager and throughout my life, it often came with a fantasy that someone would notice and save my ass. It's as if I expected someone to get the silent, invisible message. Of course, no one did.

About six years ago, I had gone on a weeklong wilderness trip with a half-assed plan on not coming back. But I'm not sure I was completely serious about it. I had experiences before where I would be in the depths of depression as I left town for the sticks but would then reach a huge emotional high once I got out there. It's a remarkable feeling. And this trip was much the same, except the months and weeks leading up to it were worse than usual.

Before this trip, I had made some final arrangements of sorts. I made sure some things were in order back home and most importantly, I had shredded all my old journals that I had written since junior high school. I stuffed all the shreds into a grocery bag and placed it in my backpack so that I could burn it once I got into the mountains, which I did. By the time I reached the point where I would leave the trail and go to the special spot, I simply turned south and went on with the trip.

I'm wondering what everyone thinks of this: is it possible that going right up to the edge, sort of going through the motions, is some form of search for an alternative passage out? As if you need to look around the corner, or over the edge (pick your metaphor) as some kind of search for a way not to do it? I had learned long ago that no one would save me and I wonder if I was still searching for some kind of alternative salvation. And that the only way to find it was through that narrow hole where there's nothing left but do go this way or that.

I'm sorry for not being clear about this. I just have a very hard time finding words for all this.

 

[MT Johnny]

Actually I think you expressed it very well. I used to become all freaked out by suicidal ideation. At some point, I realized it can stop as suddenly as it starts. It usually starts with some crisis in my life, when things go awry. It ends with some kind of resolution to the situation. It has never been about death, it has been about feeling like I had enough worth for anyone to care if I live or die.

 

[Kefira]

I struggle with suicidal ideation. I consider myself 'passively suicidal' during big chunks of the year related to my trauma. There have been a number of times where I have put affairs in order, written a note, destroyed things I did not want found, left passwords in a scheduled email for someone I imagined would need to handle those accounts, and called friends. Normally I just needed a chance to sort of say goodbye, so I'd call people under guise of arranging a time to get together, or to ask about something that I knew was going on with them. I rarely flat-out told anyone goodbye because I knew some people in my social circle were savvy enough for that to be a red flag, but I wanted to hear their voices and get a last chance to talk to them.

I had a spot picked once and drove there with what I needed. Once I got there though I was calm and left. It's not like anything life changing happened, and it's not like I knew I wasn't planning on going through with it, I was. It felt more like something I needed to process though and then I could walk away.

 

[joeylittle]

I'm wondering what everyone thinks of this: is it possible that going right up to the edge, sort of going through the motions, is some form of search for an alternative passage out? As if you need to look around the corner, or over the edge (pick your metaphor) as some kind of search for a way not to do it?

I agree that this is what often happens, but I don't think it's actually necessary to the process of finding that other path. The only reason I say that is this - suicidal ideation is dangerous. No matter how in control of it you are, it is (as you say) walking up to an edge. I think for those of us who have chronic suicidality, its very easy to get tricked by our own confidence in ourselves. I know I have a belief that I can handle mine, and 99% of the time I do. But there was that one time I couldn't. There is always that one time that can happen, to any of us.

Ultimately, I do think it's like anything - you need to train your thoughts away from it. That is really challenging when its been with you a long, long time. But I don't think it's a necessary element - that in order to choose life, you need to be on the verge of choosing death. You can also just choose to work on living, regardless.

 

[StellaBlue]

I think you described it quite clearly and eloquently @WillyKat. For me, suicide ideation is strongest when I feel both helpless and hopeless (I sometimes call it "trapped")...so viewing it as a passage makes sense. But I agree with @joeylittle, it is a dangerous state of mind. It's also exhausting.

For me, the way out of near constant SI was to begin by noticing the rare moments when it wasn't there - noticing them and naming them. Then, as the SI-free moments occurred more and more, I was able to examine the SI moments more closely when they occurred - look for triggers, look at the thoughts and emotions that came along with them...and I am learning (have learned maybe) to detach the "story" from the emotions so that I can sit with them alone until they lessen. And I also validate them - I am able to say to myself - oh, this and this and this is happening, it makes sense that I am feeling this. By doing this, I am, more often than not now, able to "unlink" the strong emotions from SI.

 

[WillyKat]

Wow! I'm kind of blown away by the responses. I guess I was expecting "nope, I don't have a clue what you're talking about". I sure didn't expect "well yeah, all the time."

I spoke with a friend of mine recently who happens to be a research psychologist. Someone he knows that actually went through with it did so in a frenzy; it had to be right now. He had cut through the gun cases and, well.... So my friend was worried about me with all the SI, so I told him "no, it was always a long, drawn out process for me; never a frenzied thing at all.

 

[Kefira]

no, it was always a long, drawn out process for me; never a frenzied thing at all.

There was an interesting study (If I can figure out how to find it again I'll link) that was about the role of impulsiveness in suicides. They polled people who had made attempts that were near-fatal, since that's as close as you can really get to asking people who have completed suicide, and asked how long they had contemplated it before making an attempt. About a quarter of them answered less than five minutes.

Not to say that some successful suicides aren't extremely deliberate with a lot of planning. Because certainly that's the case. And not to say that when I'm in a several day ideation spike and I'm putting all my affairs in order slowly and methodically I'm not at risk, because obviously I am. But I've been sort of morbidly interested by the fact that it seems like that decision isn't really made for certain until the last few minutes regardless. From my attempt vs my ideation I can say that that seems to be the case for me personally. No matter how serious I feel the ideation is and how intent I am on making preparations, the time it became an attempt there was a switch that went off where looking back I knew exactly when I'd crossed over that line.

 

[StellaBlue]

No matter how serious I feel the ideation is and how intent I am on making preparations, the time it became an attempt there was a switch that went off where looking back I knew exactly when I'd crossed over that line.

This was my experience as well. My experience with ideation is that it is noise - sometimes background murmuring and sometimes loud shouting...but when there has been an actual attempt, it has been exactly like a switch being flipped.

 

[WillyKat]

My psychologist friend told me the same @Kefira, that most suicides are frenzied: has-to-happen-now kind of thing.

I agree too with @joeylittle that there's still a great danger here. SI is serious business.

 

[Tinyflame]

Nothwithstanding poor emotional regulation or even emotional immaturity (or factors like adding alcohol, etc), I sometimes wonder if the impulsiveness is just a hole, a breech in a dam that gives when one is used to dealing with it & keeping up a front & can no longer? Because I experience it as a dead calm or a switch as well.

If you are not sure if you will make it back & have made arrangements, I'd consider it closer to passive SI. JMHO though.

 

[Gadgie]

A couple of months ago I was at the lowest part of my life, my wide had just died, her family had turned against me, and I was totally isolated and alone. I had no family or friends, as I had spent the last seven years caring for my wife.

For those years I hardly got out of the house, it was like being under house arrest, I couldn't even go and sit in the garden, unless someone was with her. Her family were of no help, despite our many pleas for help, I had to care for her alone.

Then a week after she passed, and I was at the end of the road, I wrote a post on an ex service site I've used for years, as they have come to be my closest friends, even though they were just cyber friends. In the post, I wrote that I might not be posting for a while, as I was going through a bad patch, and I didn't want to spoil the banter.

I sat here in my chair, and stared at the pills (morphine) that were left over form my wife's treatment, and listened to the silence, all I could hear was the clicking of the clock. After what seemed like hours, I picked the pills up, ....reached for the glass of water, and was just about to put the pills in my mouth, when the phone rang, it seemed so loud that it actually frightened me, and brought me back from the abyss.

It was my cyber mate in Canada, one of the blokes from that site I mentioned, he said that he had read my post on the site, and knowing what I had being going though, for the past few months, he thought he would give me a call, in case I was planning anything stupid, (his exact words) He was right, .......in fact, .......we both cried.

We talked for a while, then there was a knock at my door, "that will be the police he said" as he had called them from Canada to ask them to come and check on me, as he felt something wasn't right?

How right he was, the police were very good to me, they spoke to my mate, who was still on the phone, then after a while they left. I owe my life to a bloke who lives thousands of miles away, a bloke who I have never met, but God willing, I will one day.

 

[WillyKat]

I'm glad you didn't. And I think you're wife would be glad too.