Suicide Feels Inevitable. Can Anyone Relate?

[shimmerz]

There aren't many divisions for the psych community in what these thoughts are called. Only passive ideation and active ideation.

Then I think we have a ways to go on psychological terms. Seriously.

I have two trains of thoughts at the time. One is the witness that says WTF are you thinking???? and the other is focused on running this, idk, script? with which there is no thought formulation. Just a focused set of words that say 'Do it now!'

There seems to be no frame of reference as to the outcome of 'doing it now'. In other words there is no thought of death or any other destructive consequences to the action. There are no words that detail what I am meant to do. Just a vision in my head of running and diving (or curling up in a ditch or a hot car). It is more a body thing than a mind thing.

Anyway, I don't want to argue about it. I just needed to say that it is not what one would think of normally as thinking, or being depressed or sad, or anything. I think that is different from what you are attempting to describe or label.

 

[shimmerz]

that's what my therapist called it.

I would be interested in the rest of this posting. Would love to hear what your therapist said.

 

[scout86]

Yes, but in a couple of different ways. One is what I'd think of as 'ideation'. Just the somewhat random thought that it would be a good idea. Or not a bad idea. And occasion random 'wondering what it would be like' thoughts. But I've had 2 good friends kill themselves. I think they were both better people than I am. Smart, tougher........ If they couldn't avoid it, sometimes I wonder what makes me think I can. I wonder a lot what, exactly, they were experiencing, how it felt. Stuff like that. I don't know that either of them really 'had' to die. but they did. I don't see that as quite the same thing as 'ideation'. It's more the thought that that end might be inevitable, no matter what.

 

[Gs172003]

I would be interested in the rest of this posting. Would love to hear what your therapist said.[/QUOT...

too much to explain it all but

Last weekend when I had some issues I thought about calling my kids and asking them if they would be OK with me taking my life. I had to force myself out of that idea. A couple days later I agreed to tell my therapist. Long story short she called the "idea" ideation. She said she would not put me in the hospital unless I was in immediate danger.

 

[Gs172003]

My xo

Yes, but in a couple of different ways. One is what I'd think of as 'ideation'. Just the somewhat rando...

My cousin took his life last summer. I'm just now kinda getting through it. I can't. Can't. Can't. Put my loved ones through that again. No matter how much I hurt.

 

[sun seeker]

Funny thing was, it wasn't my voice. I don't know whose it was.

Your comment made me think -- yea who's voice is that.

Possibly a dissociated part of you based on internalizing parts of your abusers? I have some of those and they don't manifest exactly this way, but I can see how it could happen. I wonder what the intent underneath the coolness of the death wish is. Is it possible to have an internal dialogue?

 

[sedna]

I often wander around feeling like Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman.

Its more of a passive and ambivalent death related to who I should have been and how things will inevitably play out at the end.

If Id been less hopeful and resilient I could have killed myself when I was younger, while I still had a passion for the idea of it and could have made it interesting.

I have really shitty luck, Im fairly convinced that right after I die some angel will show up with an iphone and make me watch a video about how great things were going to get.... starting 5 minutes after I pulled the trigger.

 

[Tinyflame]

I'm with @scout86 . And @joeylittle , though I think ideation would not characterize it- I would need a T that 'got' the difference! Maybe it coincides with the sense of a fore-shortened future, & the reality of what Scout observed? And as Joeylittle said not knowing how to make the pain stop while living?

I'm sorry about your cousin @missy meier . :(

 

[Gs172003]

I'm with @scout86 . And @joeylittle , though I think ideation woul...

Thanks. I think ideation is just a general term but like dissociation it's different for alot of people.

 

[Tinyflame]

@missy meier did you think your kids were going to say it would be ok?

 

[joeylittle]

Anyway, I don't want to argue about it. I just needed to say that it is not what one would think of normally as thinking, or being depressed or sad, or anything. I think that is different from what you are attempting to describe or label.

I don't want to argue, either.

I will say that ideation is not always dramatic or sad or depressed at all. It can be cool, logical, and clear. It can be thought-based or purely physical (I have those experiences too). There is a very wide spectrum, and the psych community defines it as 'passive ideation'. People usually bristle at the term, 'passive'; what it means is, you are currently in enough control over the thoughts that you are not going to act on them in the immediate instant.

Active ideation is what happens when one is engaged in readying for the act of suicide. Active ideation is what one is hospitalized for; passive ideation, one is generally not hospitalized for it, although the skill of the crisis evaluator will greatly affect the outcome here.

The dividing line between passive and active is often very thin, and can change quickly, without the individual being able to regain control of their actions.

My only point is that ideation can mean many different things to different people, but it is all under the umbrella of 'ideation'. This is good to know, especially when talking with clinicians.

 

[Muttly]

I have, though not so much anymore.

I guess I had what joeylittle referred to as chronic suicidality ((I think, it's on the other page of posts so I can't double check without losing what I wrote). I had a date set, I got to that date and moved it but I never took it away. It just changed from time to time. Part of it was depression but I think part of it was almost habit. I suppose that maybe sounds bad but I was just so used to the thought pattern that it seemed like it would never change. And we weren't really aware of DID and being many so things felt really crazy. I might not have felt all that bad at times or felt like I couldn't commit suicide because of the pets and friends, but then we'd engage in self-destructive behavior and thinking we couldn't live.

I think the fact I'd lost a couple friends to suicide also made it seem more possible. That might not be the right word, but it was a reality, not just something we had heard about. And the more our on actions were suicidal (even if I wasn't wanting that) the more real it became too.