Sensitive topic: understanding suicide and aftermath

[Tinyflame]

@grit just a side note, thwarted belonging and perceived burdensomeness, but also lack of fear/ exposure to violence. He seems to think it's the last one for people that tips the scale between ideation and attempt/ action. So for example, I could see anger at one's self, and lack of self-compassion vs anger at another as more of a tipping point. JMHO though.

 

[grit]

I've never attempted suicide, but I have seriously considered it. Ultimately, I couldn't do that to my son. He has saved my life on numerous occasions. He is the last person I would ever want to cause pain. And though I know he is more than capable of living without me (he's an adult), I know if I gave-up like that it would harm him too much. I wouldn't want to put him through that kind of pain.

So, yeah I live in my own private hell on earth, because I love my son. People say they'd take a bullet for their children. I would too in a heartbeat, but I'd also keep living for my son.

I guess that alone is strong feeling of love and belonging.... And enough to look beyond the moment of despair.

 

[grit]

@grit just a side note, thwarted belonging and perceived burdensomeness, but also lack of fear/ exposure to violence. He seems to think it's the last one for people that tips the scale between ideation and attempt/ action. So for example, I could see anger at one's self, and lack of self-compassion vs anger at another as more of a tipping point. JMHO though.

Thank you for adding that third factor.... I did not understand it and you put it so practically.

 

[bellbird]

So if you recover from attempting one and have reached a phase where you feel comfortable talking about it, I thank you in advance of your input and feedback.

I attempted suicide in May 2018, less than a week after I graduated with my bachelor's degree.

I had a lot of things going on at the time: intense depression, anxiety, PTSD and anorexia.

It was like my body and mind had been holding on so that I'd be able to walk across that stage, because I'd fought through so much to make it to the end of that degree.

I saw my T two days later, and for the first time ever in the 3 years I'd been seeing her at that stage (and the second time ever in her career), I couldn't guarantee my safety and she had to have me hospitalised.

I only went outpatient at that stage, and I was discharged several hours later.

Four days after that, I attempted.

I spent the night in a resus room, and was admitted inpatient to a psych ward the next day where I spent the next three weeks.

Surviving a failed suicide attempt is one of the hardest things I've done. Only leaving my abusive relationship can compare. The spine surgery I had last year doesn't even come close.

Instead of taking back control from everything I had going on, in the most final sense, by killing myself. I'd instead been thrust into this world where I had my control taken away from me on pretty much every level.

I remember being asked following my attempt, "do you feel relief, regret, or neutral that your attempt failed?"
Regret was the answer for many months.

My turning point (or maybe turning zone, since I don't think there's a single point where everything is suddenly better) was about 6 months following my attempt.

I'd decided that I wanted to have spine surgery. Pain from scoliosis had really ramped up during inpatient while I'd been too sick to stretch my back.

Preparing for spine surgery meant I needed to get myself up to a healthy body weight, and I needed to improve my fitness. At the same time, my doctor had added phenergan into my sleep med regime, which was allowing me to get to sleep at a reasonable time for the first time.

I was sleeping more, eating more and exercising more. Which in turn gave me the capacity to get into my Master's work again.

I had a sense if purpose in my life again; something to work towards.

It was around that time that the answer to the question, "do you feel relief, regret, or neutral that your attempt failed?" became "relief".

It also gave my treatment team and I an important insight: one of my protective factors is having something to work towards.

So now that's what we do; we make sure I always have multiple things I'm working towards, so that when one thing is finished, there's always something else on the horizon. And in a year's time when I graduate my Master's, there will already be something else I'm working towards so that I won't again feel like my life is pointless once I've walked across that stage.

 

[grit]

@bellbird
Thank you so much for sharing your hard fought journey. I am so happy for you to learn that lesson of having a goal.... Something to strive for and your strength to hold yourself until you can reframe your story.

Much appreciated to give different perspective.

 

[Deanna]

My story is rather short. I contemplated suicide in my head all the time.. With my parents. I was always running away because my dad would beat me. He beat my brother so bad, his chest was black and blue. His coach in school, noticed it in gym class and my brother ( 1 brother of 4) was adopted out. ( this is one of many traumas so I might add more attempts when they become clear to me) I o' ded and lived through it. Once when I was young, my best friends mother was a nurse. There's a medicine cabinet if I ever saw one, I thought. I took a handful of pills from all the bottles and started hallucinating before I passed out. My parents called the police and had me thrown in jail. I was a run-away.

The second time was when I was sent to my parents house after the military ( I only stayed in the military for 5 or 6 months) That little girl in me buckled with fear of my dad. I was sent to their address. I lived there just long enough to get a job and I rented a room in a house. In between that time I went to a party after work ( I worked nightshift) and took every pill there in order to just die. A garden-party, rather. I passed out and was driven to a place where I was gang-raped.
I could go on and on about the rapes I had done to me while trying to die. Then knowledge came to me. Every time I talked to someone, I thought to myself that they were gonna' die and it kept me alive. I'm more positive now but I am on medications and like bellbord, I need an operation at the base of my neck ( spinal surgery) from so many beatings. My real brother is the same way with his neck. My step brother committed suicide and started the hotline ( his death was one of 5 Kid deaths in my area in a year)

The aftermath was bullemia. From sexual/physical abuse as a kid. I did that most of my life but I don't do that anymore.

 

[grit]

@Deanna It is always a shocking to me how much a human mind/body can take so much trauma. I am really sorry this has happened and thank you for sharing your story and how you survived in those traumatic experiences alone and lived to tell.

After tinyflame recommended Joiner, I fell into the bunny trail of all these different authors and approaches. There is so much to read and absorbing.
Jesse Bering's Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves and Roy Baumeister's Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength are both not only fascinating and curious but also full of information about exactly what I was looking not just why but how it is really a human nature state of mind that some of us tap into it in the darkest moment of their psyche.

I am appreciative everyone who shared their story without being very triggered and that sharing you did helped me in great deal process my own experience and probably helped others understand their actions, and experience more.
We are all in it this spectrum of self harm whether it is using sex, alcohol or violence against the body/mind....just some are more lasting than others.

Thank you again. I really appreciate and this does not mean the post is closed. Just my real humility of your outpouring honest and truth.

 

[candor]

Grit thank you for your very thoughtful and heartfelt post on a subject that is so relevant to so many of us that have suffered or are suffering. I have always believed as an adult that pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. I have memories of suicidal attempts from the age of 8. I use to stand on rooftops or near open windows a lot. Therapists did not help me. At a young age, I educated myself in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, psychotherapy looking for answers. I became a deep thinker. Gratitude is imo an essential tool. However, it was not until my teens when a few friends actually succeeded in their suicide attempt that I decided to leave everything I knew and start in a completely different environment. I can’t tell you if this actually saved my life or not. I can tell you that every belief and thought I ever had got constantly challenged. The core of cognitive psychology is understanding that we are not our thoughts. I do not have a history of either low esteem nor self harm. Financially and academically I became a success despite being a female foriegner in a competitive field. Without the emotions that attach themselves to our thoughts, memories with time dissappear. This explains why we keep replaying painful memories in our heads. This is a kind of self harm. Without the emotions that attach themselves to our thoughts, the desire to end our life has a real hard time to win against our will to survive. Thoughts like “Nobody listens. Nobody cares” can only be changed imo through objective observation and active attempts to disprove. I have rented my 2 rooms to two young adults in their 30’s. Both like me have suicidal idealisation as traits in their personality and neither have made any actual attempts. We practice at home what I call killing the thought. Example: The thought “I am the only one that does any work around here” gets expressed by someone. After we examine why it is true, we look at why its false. We discuss how the thought makes us all feel. We look at blame and judgement. I believe as I tell them that the reality of that thought may not be as important as understanding and honoring the feelings around the thought. Once I learned to see the patterns of what triggers me then I got busy noticing what triggers others. Thinking it so doesn’t make it so. Having struggled with dissociation most of my life, I have realized that suicide is to me the ultimate escape and is meant often to punish others more than to hurt oneself. Fortunately, I am not vengeful. Thinking of who might get hurt has stopped me and stopped my father as well from taking our own lives. We both survived and lived long fulfilled lives. Sorry for the long rant.

 

[grit]

Grit thank you for your very thoughtful and heartfelt post on a subject that is so relevant to so many of us that have suffered or are suffering. I have always believed as an adult that pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. I have memories of suicidal attempts from the age of 8. I use to stand on rooftops or near open windows a lot. Therapists did not help me. At a young age, I educated myself in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, psychotherapy looking for answers. I became a deep thinker. Gratitude is imo an essential tool. However, it was not until my teens when a few friends actually succeeded in their suicide attempt that I decided to leave everything I knew and start in a completely different environment. I can’t tell you if this actually saved my life or not. I can tell you that every belief and thought I ever had got constantly challenged. The core of cognitive psychology is understanding that we are not our thoughts. I do not have a history of either low esteem nor self harm. Financially and academically I became a success despite being a female foriegner in a competitive field. Without the emotions that attach themselves to our thoughts, memories with time dissappear. This explains why we keep replaying painful memories in our heads. This is a kind of self harm. Without the emotions that attach themselves to our thoughts, the desire to end our life has a real hard time to win against our will to survive. Thoughts like “Nobody listens. Nobody cares” can only be changed imo through objective observation and active attempts to disprove. I have rented my 2 rooms to two young adults in their 30’s. Both like me have suicidal idealisation as traits in their personality and neither have made any actual attempts. We practice at home what I call killing the thought. Example: The thought “I am the only one that does any work around here” gets expressed by someone. After we examine why it is true, we look at why its false. We discuss how the thought makes us all feel. We look at blame and judgement. I believe as I tell them that the reality of that thought may not be as important as understanding and honoring the feelings around the thought. Once I learned to see the patterns of what triggers me then I got busy noticing what triggers others. Thinking it so doesn’t make it so. Having struggled with dissociation most of my life, I have realized that suicide is to me the ultimate escape and is meant often to punish others more than to hurt oneself. Fortunately, I am not vengeful. Thinking of who might get hurt has stopped me and stopped my father as well from taking our own lives. We both survived and lived long fulfilled lives. Sorry for the long rant.

Not rant at all. Thank you so much for sharing and letting me know many different and creative ways we all as humans find our way in this maze called life. Much happiness and long life to you.