First Time Serious Suicidal Thinking.

[GreenFrog2]

Had to stop due to emotions taking over! I have found that positive self talk helps - especially if I can do it out aloud! I say "My name is ****, I love myself I am safe". I am thinking of adding something else along the lines of "these are only emotions, like clouds in the sky they are passing me by" - but I have not been able to add this second sentence yet, but am working up to it!

I am also developing a set of questions that I can put to myself in social situations so that I can interact calmly. Given the importance that I am placing on friendship and fellowship I need to work on myself so that when people talk to me (especially unexpectedly) I can stay calm and talk with them. I have had a few situations in the last few weeks where this has not gone so well, and I have cried my eyes out - which adds to the distress. It's not the people or what they are saying - I am just so sensitive that almost any comment will get me crying.

I think I can't believe the anyone would even want to talk to me, so when they do I overreact and get anxious and then the emotional flooding starts.

It is defiantly a problem, and all the external things that I do (sunglasses, drink bottle to hold onto etc..) only help a little bit. The mass (size) of the emotional flooding is so big that it can totally take over - and it is so embarrassing that I just have to walk away (once I can), because of the tears.

This weekend (yes I keep going each week) I am going to try and initiate conversations so that I am not caught by surprise. There a couple of people who I have told that I am going through a difficult time at the moment, and most of them have accepted this. I think that 1 of them also has some anxiety issues as I often see her doing focused deep breathing and trying to settle herself - we also give each other time to get an answer out. We have not talked about specific details at all, which I like - it is a real positive to have her ask how I am doing and to give me a chance to reply, and then when I ask her I can be patient while she breaths and then gives me her answer.

I am going to try and make this happen with some other people as well - maybe they will also accept that I am struggling, and appreciate that I am trying to deal with it = be a little patient with me so that I can get used to talking to people again, without my emotional baggage taking over and sabotaging me.

The next writing from em is going to have to be bout why my emotions are sabotaging me? I crave human contact and then behave in a way that stops me from having the very thing that I crave. I know I have low self esteem, but deep down inside of me is it so low that I believe that I don't deserve friends?

The short answer is yes. Sadly, somewhere deep inside of myself there is a part of me that believe's that I don't deserve to have friends or a partner. My mum did her best to damage me in this regard and my dad still is. Now that I am in contact with him again there seems to be this thing growing in me that is all about remembering all the evil things he used to say - not surprising really. This is being compounded by the fact that I have not heard from my brothers yet. Dad said that they were pleased that I had been in touch, but not to worry that I had not heard from them.

I think that he has manipulated them into not contacting me so that he can "be in charge" of whatever reconciliation happens - or something like that. He has always been very good at keeping people away from me and trying to convince me that some people don't want to have anything to do with me (even good friends) - trying to undermine my self-esteem all of the time, by manipulating things he said so that I thought no one wanted me. (I HATE him for this).

Fortunately we now have facebook and I have had a contact from my sister in law so maybe things will progress with my brothers despite my father. In some ways I would like to have some contact with him - minimal stuff as I think this will be needed if I am to re-establish things with my brothers.

All this family isolation has contributed so much to my feeling worthless - if my own family don't want me then who will?

So in a back to front way of protecting myself, I sabotage social development so that I won't have to face rejection and get hurt again.

Now doesn't that sound totally PTSDish! My behavior is an abnormal reaction to circumstances that are abnormal - it is an over-reaction. OK for a child, but not for an adult who is no longer in danger.

So I am going to have to try and do the opposite of what my first reaction is when I am in a social setting. Whow - so easy to write all this, and I hope that now I have shared it the thoughts in my mind will settle down.

Actions to follow when interacting with other people (work and social):
1/ Deep breathing and positive self talk.
2/ Rehearse (if possible) what I will say.
3/ Take a breath before answering a question so that my mind has a chance to think - choose my answer.
4/ Stay calm and speak.
5/ If things get complicated take a rest and then return to the conversation (no running away).

 

[GreenFrog2]

Good news! I slept really deeply last night and for 9 hours! what a blessing!

I have spent the time since then allowing myself to use meditation techniques and positive / rational thinking to cope with hurtful thoughts and emotions. It has been working pretty well. The negative thoughts still start to form, but when I move my attention to my breathing they tend to dissipate so I don't focus on them for too long. Same with the emotions - they are there and I have cried a little, but I am just accepting this. The result so far has been that they are there, but I can tolerate their presence. Am wondering how much the great night's sleep has had to so with this, or is my developing skill in this area leading to the great nights sleep?? (either way, am hoping for more of the same).

I am starting to be able to understand why I am thinking things that lead to the emotional flooding, and this has helped me to learn to process stuff better.

I don't always like what I am learning about myself - especially that I can push myself into emotional misery in an attempt to gain attention and to avoid healing. It really has become a coping mechanism for me, but a very, very unhealthy one!

I think that it is OK to feel compassion for myself, and as I get very little support here in my world I don't mind if from time to time I need to give myself whatever support I need in the form of acknowledging that I am sad and alone. What I want to stop doing is letting it take over and smother me.

I can see ahead to a time when I am more aware of which is a healthy kind of emotion and which is the destructive kind. From reading Pete Walkers articles I think that it is time for my inner child to be allowed to mature, and balance out the "adult" in me. My responses to my thinking and actions and pretty much everything has always been so critical (just like my parents) and I think that my inner child never really had much of a chance to grow and develop like she should have.

It is all a bit confusing for me at the moment so I wont write much - but I hope to be able to "see" more clearly about this in the coming weeks / months. and to have a much more balanced and self-nurturing approach to my thinking and emotions.

 

[GreenFrog2]

I had another good night's sleep last night, but alas woke up feeling pretty low! It is so strange that I can have a pretty good day and then overnight end up having a totally crap morning - after deep sleep and no nightmares that I can remember....

I did positive thinking / meditation / self talk and when I said to myself : "My name is ****, I love myself and these bad thoughts are not going to ruin my day" I felt a little better each time - especially on the exhalation after each statement.

It was pretty hard to do this as I kept having intrusive thoughts about my family, bullies and feeling of hopelessness about the future. But I managed to keep myself from totally crashing, and have come here (also getting some work done as well!!!).

One thing that keeps coming into my mind is my doctor - I have realized how hard it is for me to communicate with her - she seems to have developed a habit of finishing my sentences (really controlling the conversations); making decisions for me (even though she decides the opposite of what I was going to); brushing aside stuff that is important to me (like she wont talk about the things that I have said that I need to talk about). I understand now why I have been so reluctant to go and see her again - it is like she has created a version of what is going on in y life that is convienant for me - but not necessarily so helpful for me. It has gotten to the point where she pays more attention to her opinions in what is going on than the facts which I present to her. I am too tired to argue my point so she keeps "getting away" with this.

I am pretty sad that this has happened as seeing her was one of y few outlets - but I think it is best for me to stay away for a bit and then go and see her when I have a physical problem. Feeling that trying to get help from the medical profession is a pretty futile thing for me to do.

Much better off using the resources here - sharing with people who have similar problems and finding good / healthy solutions that will improve my life - without someone else's agenda intruding.

 

[GreenFrog2]

Pema Chodren: "The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort".

I think that on Wednesday I had a good relationship with my discomfort - and I really need and want to find a way to be like that much more often. I think that a big part of it has been the word discomfort - such a simple word to describe so much, but when I can call the effects of everything that has happened "discomfort" it all becomes kind of manageable....

As those feeling of hurt, rage and anger can be placed into the basket called "discomfort" and I can deal with that. Discomfort is tolerable - if it is only discomfort that I need to cope with then I can use positive thinking, meditation, affirmations etc.... to assist me to manage the discomfort.

This has been pretty helpful (on Tuesday) when I was reflecting on why I sabotage myself. It has been difficult for me to read those posts again, but I am again accepting that my warped thinking causes me to act in the opposite way that I want to.

I have joined the 21 day challenge to help me to train my attitude and brain into being in a place where the first thoughts / action are going to be of the positive kind. I hope to be able to pay attention as I do this as it is so very easy to start going through the motions, which is not very effective. One of the things that is really helpful it is write about a positive thing that has happened in the last 24 hours for 2 minutes each day. In the past I have written a list of things that are positive (sometimes just getting out of bed), but now I will also deliberately write about a positive thing for 2 minutes.

The warped part of my thinking is saying "more work"! And my response was YES! I need to do as much "rehabilitation" as I can -if I had physical injuries then I would be doing several small rehab' sessions each day, so there is no reason why I should not be doing the same for my mind!

I will leave this now as I am going to go and re-read some earlier posts in this thread.....

 

[GreenFrog2]

What could you do now to help you step away from the darkness just a bit? What do you need?

I need to feel safe - and I don't.

The bullies who have traumatized me in recent years have invaded every aspect of my life - I don't feel safe anywhere and I am so frightened to tell people what has happened, or where I am at in my life because when I did in the past the bullies found out, and used what I had said to damage me even more.

So yeah, I need to feel safe. And I don't know how to make this happen.

 

[GreenFrog2]

It really is a bummer when there are so many different tools available to me to use to become healthy, and I can't implement them due to exhaustion!

When I wake up I want to catch my positive affirmations and use them to place myself in a positive mind set for the day. When I can catch them this works pretty well, but I am often so tired that I don't think to do it, and then the negative stuff takes over....you know the dwelling on the past and worrying about the future, feelings of helplessness and shame and all that crap?

I have joined the 21 day challenge here, and am using it to help me develop a more positive frame of mind (which it seems to be doing) I am also using it to help me develop a daily strategy, to attend to my well being, and healing that I can do comfortably each day. Most of the things that I want to be able to do are in the challenge, and once I am able to do this as routine I would like to then start using some other type of self help therapy to get through my trauma stuff - the CBT stuff has worked well so far so I expect that I will go back to that (with some inner child work added into the mix).

I think I am writing this down here to clarify for myself what I need to do - I have not really stopped doing the CBT, but I am doing less - it just seems to fall by the way side when I get busy with work - am very grateful that work has picked up as things financial have been horrific lately. But I still need to continue with my healing...........

 

[GreenFrog2]

I am so angry, so full of hate and resentment. HATE, HATE, HATE. So much HATE. So much hate and pain and hurt and just plain old F***ing anger.

I was doing so well, and this morning I have woken up HATING - even hating myself.
I am so full of resentment that it feels like I am over flowing.
I need someone to help me and there is no one here - I don't even believe that it is possible that anyone will ever care for me.

I wish I could understand why this has happened - I can think of one bad thing that happened yesterday (from work) - but probably it is not a huge deal, and I think that I can address the problem.

So, why the over reaction? Why the self-loathing, why do I need to drive myself into this pit of hell and misery?

Last night all that I wanted to be able to do this morning was get up and do some yoga. This was to try and prevent myself from having the time / space in bed to push myself into depression which I have a tendency to do so that I don't have to deal with the world.

Instead I have had to come here to protect myself from doing anything dangerous. I really am hurting so much emotionally, that I want to physically hurt myself to make the pain go away.

I feel like there is an invisible monster inside of me that is controlling what I do, and driving me into self destructive behavior. It gets away with this because I am so alone, and don't get positive ego stroking each day from interacting with other people. As a result of this I always make out things are catastrophic even if they are not.

It is like I have to drive myself into misery so that I can feel the emotions - but I would rather have this from other people. I want to be able to experience "normal" emotional interactions with others instead of having to rely on myself to create these fake experiences.

Is this making any sense at all - I am too tired to care / think/ feel / hope.

 

[GreenFrog2]

I can't leave yet. I am trying to turn my thinking a little towards the positive so that I can feel safe:

I am so scared - "My name is ****, I am safe".
I need to be frightened abut work - Actually right now I don't. There is only one small issue going on there, and I am pretty sure that I can deal with it without any major negative crap developing.
I am terrified about not having enough money to pay the rent - this was a valid fear up until a few weeks ago, but for now I am getting enough work and have enough money to pay the rent / buy food etc... I don;t need to worry about this one at the moment.
Family stuff - this is still a biggie, and it is frightening. Still hard to write about as my attempts in this area have left me bereft and confused.
Socially I have been feeling really alone, but this is not necessarily true. I am slowly making new friends and getting some social support from them. I also have been getting great support here. I am more open to random interactions with others, which are proving to be really helpful and supportive.

See things really aren't that bad! My horror monster is just turning everything into badness and fear, so that I stay frightened and depressed.

Why is this happening? Where is this need to internally sabotage myself coming from? How does it manage to override all the good work that I have done?

Man my head is about to explode with frustration - my feelings and my thinking are almost the opposite of each other. It is ripping me apart. I HATE IT because the feelings always manage to turn my thinking into warped crap that makes things far worse. I have already tuned out the above list and am sinking back into darkness. I F***ing hate this.

 

[nimkekaa]

So, why the over reaction? Why the self-loathing, why do I need to drive myself into this pit of hell and misery

I don't know if you would find this helpful but I have found that I use to spend hours trying to figure out "why" and it never did me any good. (My repressed memories and triggers were not something I understood or could figure out) Now I tell myself I am feeling "what ever I'm feeling". I don't have to know why but that is just how I am feeling. Then instead of working on why this happened I would work on dealing with the feeling and self talking myself through it. So I would try and say to myself, I think nobody will ever care about me but with all the people in the world that is not likely... etc.. Does this make sense? I found the why drove me nuts for a long time.

Instead I have had to come here to protect myself from doing anything dangerous.

I like this statement. It's honest feelings but your also doing something positive about it. There was a time when I felt I had no control over anything and even thinking that I need to go to the forum would be hard. I just reacted.

It gets better. You can do it. You have a lot of positive coping strategies from what I see from reading your above posts. Hugs for you if you need them.