Learned Something New Today

[SMC_1987]

I didn't know what suicidal ideation was until I joined this forum a few days ago; I had never even heard of it. I always just looked at it as you can be suicidal, or you're not suicidal. I'm quite shocked, actually.

Despite the thoughts I sometimes have "well if it gets that bad the worst that can happen is you'll die" or "I can always choose that road if I can't handle this anymore" for example, but I know that I wouldn't ever actually do anything to hurt myself. For me, they are just thoughts that come from a very frustrated place, from somewhere in my brain that I haven't been able to crack open and figure out yet. I'm still very new to even accepting that I suffer from PTSD, and as a result I guess I still have a lot to learn about it, and myself. I was in denial for a very long time, and stuffed my feelings down into some unknown storage space in my body until it got too full to accommodate it all. If I think back its been about 3 years that Ive been suffering full blown obvious symptoms, but have probably had warning signs for much longer that, due to my avoidance, got progressively worse over time.

Mind blown.

 

[Marf]

I have shared this before, but will again because it blew my mind at the time. I learned about suicidal ideation by a psychiatrist who explained being obsessed with death (because of living of fear of being killed as a kid) is different than being suicidal. This was back when my flashbacks were coming quickly and hard to process.

 

[arfie]

There is no activity more surprising that learning. One thing always leads to another on the learning curve. Often it leads to many nother things.

Another piece of trivia on "suicidal ideation" is that it is the only dx on my own chart that hasn't changed names and shapes at least once since my first therapy date in 1972. PTSD was not an available diagnosis back then.

 

[crazy8]

I didn't realize this was a validated psychological construct/official diagnosis. I believe I am on that spectrum as well. I actually found an abbreviated version of the quiz. Here it is if anyone else is interested in seeing their score. It could be a useful tool for therapy feedback, especially for people like me who aren't so good at verbalizing things.

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