Suicide Obssessed... Anyone Else And What To Do?

[shimmerz]

Is anyone else in this condition or have you been in this condition and gotten out of it????

Boy oh boy. I had to walk away from this, allow myself to go back in time, feel it, smoke, think again, feel again. Grounded I think, enough to answer you.

First question for you is whether you are on prescription drugs. They can cause suicidal thoughts. If you are, please check them. Sleep deprivation is a huge thing as well. Even if you get enough sleep, which I am guessing you don't at all, the flashbacks, dissociation all that crap saps everything out. I know. It is horrible.

Short answer is yes. I have no idea how I lived through it. Blind faith I suppose (which I was never very good at). Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' helped me to realize that I had lost my sense of purpose. Hard to see a purpose with so much suffering.

You are very helpful on this board imok. Perhaps just one post - one posting - will help someone in a way that you may never know. You may very well make a difference in someone's life....maybe you already have.

 

[joeylittle]

I am more afraid to live than to die...Is anyone else in this condition or have you been in this condition and gotten out of it????

Yes, I live in this condition. There is some ebb and flow to it, but this is pretty much it. I was fully out of this state for a few months while doing a specific kind of therapy (TMS), but ultimately it didn't 'take' and I slipped back.

The first thing you have to accept is that there is some portion of this that you can control. I'm not going to say you can control all of it, because it's likely that you can't. Whether its the damage from PTSD, whether its organic depression, or some other thing - there's something going on in your brain that is creating these thoughts.

BUT: there's another part that is purely cognitive, controllable by you. It might only be 5%, but that's enough. .0001% is enough.

It's hard work to constantly turn your mind away from the thoughts of ending your own life - but I can tell you that it does get somewhat easier with practice. You are looking for relief, and some part of you does know that death isn't relief, it's just death. Nothing gets better - everything just stops.

Here are some things you can do to help some of your present suffering go away:

• Unpack the things. It's been mentioned by others, and they are correct. Just do it. You aren't going to want to, but you need to.
• Bargain with yourself. Can you consciously decide to give yourself a year to live? Would putting an end date on things help you feel less daily pressure? If so, then go ahead and do it. Minimum one year, better 2, best 5. NOTE: that's not your new 'suicide date', it's the date you are going to re-consider your status in this world and see rationally how things have changed.
• Commit to a therapy structure. If you can't see a therapist, get a workbook and start working. This isn't 'do your own trauma therapy', it's 'do your own coping skills'. What kind you'll respond to best is a bit of trial and error - but you need a structure.
• Turn your mind. When the thoughts come up, say to yourself, 'I'm having this thought, and I'm going to put it away over here and do this thing now instead'. I know that might sound impossible. At first, it's quite hard. And you will have to do it 50, 100, 200 times a day. But it matters. it helps.

I really, really, really know where you are coming from. And the best I can tell you is that your desire to die is a distorted thought, coming from your illness. To deal with the deeper parts of it you are probably going to have to find the right care team and get into trauma processing. You might want to look into residential programs, to try and get a big jump-start on it.

But you can relieve a great deal of the pressure if you do the cognitive piece, kind of like I've described, above.

Ugh, I'm sorry for the lecture. I know I'm sounding lecture-y. I hope some part of it is useful.

 

[deer_in_headlights]

Dear Imok,

I have been where you are now. I'm not an expert, but I'm free of this, after suffering and serious attempts, and hope I can offer comfort and some encouragement.

This is a level of searing soul pain that truly is unbearable - and yet, we bear it. To die stops the pain, and yet - to continue to live, to breathe, to bear another minute of it, brings us another minute closer to that time when we can walk out of that suffering, and live.

I suffered with this for a very long time (decades); but surviving by using whatever healthy choices I could find that eased the pain enough to enable me to keep on living - even when I truly wanted desperately to die.

What has eased the suicidal pain has been amazing work with very skilled trauma therapists (I work with two - male and female).

I have an answer, but it took me a very long time to actually "get" what they were saying to me, and learn to put it into daily practice, so I could manage suicidal ideation every time it arose. I'm at the point where whenever " my old friend" shows up, I can look at it and literally, within a minute, the suicidal thought dissipates.

This takes concentrated work with guidance, understanding and practice.

In the meantime, you must keep doing whatever you can to continue living. You will come out of this hell, and be a transformed and better person. Do what you can to live. I used to read and re-read this whenever I couldn't take it anymore:
Http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

When we are in suicide- mode, we're not in our right minds, and cannot see a way out - except for death. There are truly so many healthy paths open to us that bring healing and comfort, we just cannot see them without help.

Until you can get with an amazing therapist who you can work with, keep calling out for help. Many responses may not seemingly bring exactly what you need (frustrating), but they nearly all contain bits and pieces that you can take and use for survival. (Sort of like being on a island, and in one place you find wood, another place you find palm branches, another place you find coconuts, etc... if you discard each one, then you have nothing. If you gather each one up, soon you'll have a roaring fire, food, shelter, water, clothing.... then a boat... life....)

There is so much more, so much information, learning, practice, good people to connect with, so much to hold onto...
You can do this! I believe in you, and in your courage and wisdom to seek out the answers not just on how to live, but how to transform into a person you will really like to be. Past trauma will loosen its grip on your mind and spirit, and you'll be able to think and live in new and healthier, happier ways.

We're all here for you.
With love,
Deer

Some additional thoughts... If one crisis line doesn't help, please keep trying. The national 1-800-suicide line is kind of a random thing - you never know who you're going to get. Often, I felt worse calling them, so I branched out. Keep trying, there are great ones out there among the duds.
For example, I found 3 amazing helplines - one staffed by experienced and licensed therapists, another that kindly referred me to the trauma therapist who taught me how to manage flashbacks and suicidal ideation, saving my mind and life. Another crisis line was staffed by volunteers at a local victims assistance center, who understood the traumas and often would talk with me for a long time, giving comfort and great advice.

 

[Care Bear]

This is still on my mind, @imok and I had just one last thought.....

Maybe after you are feeling a bit better, why not call up some of those friends that you have "goodbye" gifts for, invite them to lunch, and then give it to them? Try to imagine how hurts your friends would feel, no, wait, DEVASTATED your friends would feel to know you had prepared goodbye gifts for them, but that you hadn't reached out to them for help? (This is assuming you haven't, my apologies if I am wrong).

 

[Casey_03]

i have been there and the only thing that helped was realizing that i could help other people. think about other people, younger people, who have been through terrible things like you and have no one to turn to. you are one of the only people who can understand them, and if you leave, who do they have? when I say help others, i don't even mean doing anything spectacular -- i just mean listening. i have had a few encounters in my life in which a brief, 15 minute heart to heart really helped someone, or someone else really helped me. if you leave, all your suffering will have been pointless and worthless. why not use it to help someone else instead? after all, not everybody has been through what you have ... it takes a rare soul to really be able to understand someone else's pain. when i was feeling suicidal, i just went deeper and deeper and let myself be miserable, and to focus only on the negative, on misery. ultimately, though, it helped, because i wound up finding other people's stories about their suffering and i reached out to them. and it made a huge difference.

 

[Deleted member 29899]

Twinkle86, 10 years (or decades if you want to get more specific) is not a 'temporary problem'.

One answer to a couple of you that have asked, I have no support. Zero. There is no one to call. I think it's been a week since I've had a superficial conversation with a stranger. CPTSD had destroyed who I actually am and all of the relationships I had. Taken everything away. I used to be a functioning part of society, fun, attractive, attracted people, had a special repoire with people, was very funny and fun, always laughing despite any circumstances. ALL of that is gone. The ME I was is literally gone. Destroyed. What is left is a person that I greatly dislike.

Shortly all my utilities will be shut off. I think that will be my breaking point.

No help or resources... With one of your suggestions maybe SOMEHOW I can find a crisis line with qualified medical people rather than univ. students and just volunteers like we have here ( and I know more than they do).

Unpack everything? I can't do that, it took far far too long. It needed to be done and it will make life much easier for executors. It actually takes a lot of preparations to get ALL affairs in order so the 'vultures' don't come in and rob me of everything that is meant for someone else. I've witnessed the crazy dysfunctional 'family' pigs maniacally do this before and it will not happen with my estate.

Thanks for all your responses. I don't know how to respond, too much to respond to but thanks.

 

[joeylittle]

With one of your suggestions maybe SOMEHOW I can find a crisis line with qualified medical people rather than univ. students and just volunteers like we have here ( and I know more than they do).

I got scared off crisis lines I think the third time I tried and the first thing the operator said was "Is there anyone you can call to come stay with you?"...Gosh, no, if there was someone, I'd call them not the crisis line....sigh.

I've had good luck with online crisis chat instead of talking. Works better for me for some reason. I haven't used these because I'm not in Canada, but here are some I found:
http://crisiscentrechat.ca/ (BC, Yukon)
http://www.crisissupportcentre.com/ (Edmonton, Alberta)
http://www.distresscentre.com/ (Calgary, Alberta)
http://supportline.ca/ (manitoba)

Nothing else to offer except I understand where you are coming from when you write this:

What is left is a person that I greatly dislike.

Finding ways to release the pressure of all the pain is good - whether it's posting here, trying another crisis centre, screaming and breaking plates. Whatever you need to do.

 

[Deleted member 29899]

Joey it's just that it never ends.

 

[anthony]

it's just that it never ends

So you "never" have anything happy, positive or otherwise within your day?

 

[joeylittle]

I know, @imok - I really do. I've had it for over 30 years. It's a horrible, hard, terrible struggling drowning feeling. But I can tell you for true - it is something that can be made to lessen. But it's not at all easy. I'm all by myself in the world too, no family and no friends nearby - I do have a few scattered around the country, but they only know the surface of what this stuff is like for me to live with. And it's just terrifying, worse when you're alone and don't know where to get help from. This is another resource that helped me when I was really bottoming out: www.clinicaltrials.gov. It is a searchable database of clinical trials. For some reason, looking at what researchers are working on can help me feel less like I'm in a dead-end.

Honestly though, also - and I have no idea how this works in Canada - Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation really did seriously erase my suicidality for a good few months. For many people, it lasts years. It's non-invasive and has good science backing it up. I know it's offered in Canada because I looked into getting it done up there, I just don't know anything about how it works with your health care. But also, sometimes they are still in trials.

Anyway - thinking of you.

 

[shimmerz]

Imok, do you have a family doctor?

 

[Deleted member 29899]

Shimmerz yes I have a family doc who's wonderful and TRULY cares about me but he doesn't know what to offer, I saw him recently .... I know he cares but we've run out of options.... But....

Joeylittle the last time I saw my family doc he mentioned that there's one shrink in town that does TMS which I'm not familiar with.... I think he put me on the waiting list (if he remembered to, he often forgets things he's so busy) and he said the waiting could be 6 mos to a year... Obviously there's no way I have that long... I won't even wait a month... I can't be in this condition much longer.

Maybe I will call that Drs office tomorrow and see how bad the waiting list is.... Tell them that I'm chronically suicidal... I'm glad you mentioned this. TMS is the only thing I haven't tried (except ECT which, from what I've seen in a couple people I saw at a depression group a couple years ago, there's no way on Gods green earth I would do that treatment. I KNOW there are successes but I've seen the nightmare failures with people's brains are scrambled 2 and 3 yrs layer... Never did see them recover.)

I'll call the doc tomorrow. Maybe I can get in somehow....