A difficult and sensitive topic; suicide

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Sorry for the morose details, but I think it’s helpful to share my thoughts so others may feel a bit better that they’re not alone.

I’ve never shared any of these details with anyone and it’s rather cathartic to let them out. If the mods or anyone thinks I’m stepping over the line, I apologize and I’ll leave this forum as I have before for revealing too much of myself.

Regarding guns, gases, rope and other means of ending it all (I hate the word suicide), my tempering the temptation is not having them around. If I buy a gun, it will take days or weeks for me get possession, by which time the thoughts will probably have lessened. However, the chance of taking my life with a gun is near zero, assuming I don’t have access to someone else’s. The chance of my using it is multiple times higher and far more probable if I do own one. Same for gases, ropes and other items of self destruction. I could improvise, but it would take much more thought and planning.

One “temptation” is jumping off a building. I can’t go up more than three stories in a building without thinking if it’s enough to instantly kill me in an instant. If I’m on an open walkway, I can’t stop myself from looking down and picturing jumping. Even looking out a high rise window brings up thoughts about if I would be able to shatter the window and jump.

I live on the top floor of a seven story apartment building and there’s a small service manway outside my windows. I don’t tell people that one of the reasons I keep my windows closed and blacked out is so I don’t look at the manway and constantly think about climbing out there.

Just today, one of my co-workers gave me a bit of a hard time and I fantasied about how I could climb the railing of out second story office and hopefully land headfirst on the concrete of the warehouse. Instant death! SIGH

On the way home, I saw someone walking across a pedestrian bridge over the freeway and pondered about how ideal it would be if I timed my jump just right so a speeding 18 wheeler hit me before I hit the ground. DOUBLE SIGH

22

If anyone suspects I’m possibly trolling or looking for sympathy. All I can say is I’m not. Everything I’ve ever posted here as Didi44 and under my previous name is 100% true. It takes too much effort and IMHO a really twisted mind to make up what I’ve posted.

As I said above, it’s actually cathartic to let some of this out.

Edit: I used to talk to a teenage girl who saw me a mentor. I’d tell her stories, nothing along the lines of what I have here, just real-life experiences that I didn’t want her to go though. She’d often ask me if I was making them up or secretly writing a book, something others have asked me to to. I assured her that my mind couldn’t possibly work that way.

23

I don’t think you’re making it up. I’m curious what function you think these thoughts serve. It doesn’t sound like you find them distressing. But maybe a little fantasy relief? Like you always have an out when you need it?

Because for me the thoughts are very distressing. I don’t want them. And I’m afraid that the more I think about them the more likely I am to hurt myself. And I can’t hurt my husband that way. Even after the baby was born, the one thing I had to get through the darkness was my love for my husband. Stronger than the urge to die was the feeling that I had to protect him. I can’t say what would happen if he weren’t there because he’s always been there my entire adult life. There’s always been someone pulling me back from the brink. The first time I ever seriously considered suicide I was thirteen, and it was an unexpected phone call from my Aunt that stopped me. She didn’t know, I never told her. But just that reminder that someone would hurt if I killed myself was enough to carry me through.

24

Exactly this. Years ago I started telling people that I always have a plan. It may not be a good plan, but at least it’s a plan. Some people, even those who have never met me before understand exactly what’s I’m talking about. I wonder about these people. Is it because they have the same thoughts/fantasies?

Here’s another story if everyone doesn’t mind. Years ago, I was really frustrated and down at work. I invited all my coworkers to a barbeque at my house, everything completely on me. Everyone had a good night. I had planned to to be my last hurrah. A while later I told my friend about my plan. He said, “I know”. I left the job a couple of months later.

25

Do you have times where things seem more “acute,” like you’re in crisis or need to be hospitalized or anything? Or is it always like this low - level drone? This is the first time I’ve heard of chronic suicidal ideation in this way. In the past I have had a lot of I want to die thoughts and even self - harm impulses, but when I start planning it means something is going seriously wrong.

Oh, this too. I’ve heard some horror stories.

My Mom was suicidal when I was growing up and sometimes I wonder if that’s affected my own coping skills. She talked about wanting to die and threatened to kill herself a lot - on one memorable occasion she opened her car door while we were driving down the highway and said she was going to jump out.

Once when I was about fourteen I came home from school and there were a half dozen familiar cars in our driveway, the back door window was busted out, glass everywhere, and nobody there but my stepfather.

I asked, “What did she do?” because it was always something she did. I got a non - answer except that she’d been taken for counseling. The local police were involved somehow, but I got no information. My parents acted like it didn’t happen.

I didn’t get any information until I talked to my Aunt, with whom I shared everything. Apparently my mother wrote a bunch of suicide letters, including one to me, she called my Aunt to “say goodbye” and she hung up. My Aunt immediately called the police, rushed over to our house, broke in the back window with a baseball bat. The police found my mother in a field somewhere with a bottle of pills and they told her she either had to go to the hospital or straight to crisis counseling.

I was a teen but I talked to my Aunt about everything, and we had the most bleak conversation. The subtext was “maybe it would be for the best,” because in those days everyone was suffering right along with my mother. She was the only one willing to acknowledge what we had to deal with.

According to my Aunt, whatever was in the letter to my grandmother, my grandmother burned it and refuses to speak about it. And my Mom has told me she hated my Aunt for interrupting her suicide, even years later. After decades of abuse, my Aunt finally cut her off.

I actually deal with my emotions pretty well by comparison.

26

Definitely have really low, lows where I really ponder ending it at that moment. A few years ago, I had a terrible choking fit lying in bed at night. I could barely breathe. Rather than get up and try to orient myself to breathe better, I just decided to lay there and die if it was time.

I started writing more, but think it’s best to leave it here.

Understand and accept that everyone has their high and low moments. If anyone says they’ve never had suicidal thoughts, they’re lying. I truly believe that’s an innate part of the human psyche that makes us human. It’s a cliche but I’m a survivor, as are you and the others on this thread. But surviving doesn’t make us immune to thoughts and hurt. Surviving also doesn’t always make us stronger. For me, surviving makes me desire ending it all even stronger. The dream, the fantasy and perhaps someday the reality is always there. But unless it happens, it’s just another day to me.

27

I sometimes step outside my mind and wonder whether some of my thoughts are real or not.

On my bad, but not really bad days, this mixup of the lyrics from Breathe by Pink Floyd runs through my mind.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day…Shorter of breath and one day closer to death!

Yep, sometimes on my bad days, I’ll get out of bed just to make the day pass because I can’t sleep anymore. I’ll exhaust myself during the day, just so I can fall asleep and hope I don’t wake up.

Yeah, messed up I know, but I’m 100% sure I’m not alone.

28

The “none of your business” was addressed abstractly to the drive-by amateur therapists who say things like “It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

You don’t know who has been depressed his entire adult life. You don’t know who is in intractable pain from late-stage cancer. You don’t know a person’s economic situation; there are holes you can’t dig yourself out of.

I’m reminded of an instance-- and this is a bit of an involved story, but it’s nuanced, and I don’t know a way to make this shorter-- anyway, not a time I was contemplating suicide, mind you, just a time that was very difficult, and I was moody, and probably a little short with people. Mostly, though, I was saying no to things I usually said yes to, which means both that I was socially withdrawn, and that I was not reliably a person to get things done, like I usually was.

Saturday morning at synagogue, I was in the hallway getting away from the crowd for a moment-- crowds do not normally bother me at all, but I was hypersensitive. Anyway, a guy I knew fairly well, but who was not a close friend-- a guy I’d invite to a party, but who was not a confidante, in other words-- came up to me and asked if I were OK. I said that things were difficult. I don’t remember exactly what I said. It was designed to get him off the subject, but without saying “don’t worry, I’m fine.”

He pulled a worn piece of newspaper out of his wallet, and read something from a Dear Abby column to me. It was a list of 10 terrible things that could happen to a person, the upshot of which was, if you weren’t dealing with one of those, count your blessings, suck up whatever minor thing was bringing you down, and drive on.

I don’t remember all the things on the list, but they were all outliers-- things that not only were pretty bad, but axiomatically infrequent in anyone’s experience.

Here’s the thing: within the current calendar month, three of them had happened to me. Nevermind what they were. That’s not the point.

I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t say anything. I just let him put his paper back in his wallet and leave.

He’d clearly been impressed by the column himself, been carrying it a while, and I was doubtfully the only person he’d sprung it on. He must have gotten mostly positive responses, judging by his attitude when he read it to me: he clearly expected me to have some kind of epiphany, or at the very least, thank him. He was not a guy with poor social skills nor difficulty reading people. And in fact, if you were an oddsmaker, the numbers for throwing a dart at a crowd and hitting someone experiencing three of the things on his list at once would probably be a very long shot.

A long shot, but not an impossibility, and with enough darts, and enough crowds, it would eventually happen.

That’s what Very Special Episodes of TV shows, Dear Abby columns, and other sources of drive-by advice are doing: shooting buckets of darts at very large crowds, the members of which they know nothing about.

29

The person who first brought up “a permanent solution to a temporary problem” in this thread attributed it to “some TV show.” Since the rest of us don’t know the context of the TV show, we don’t know whether or not it was a reasonable thing to say in that context.

30

I’ve heard that expression so many times in so many contexts it’s basically a truism. For many of us, depression is not a temporary problem.

31

ok, I can’t really just not participate in my own thread, even though it went someplace I didn’t expect.

earlier, I said Didi and I were superficially similar. Boy howdy, that superficially was accurate, but there are similarities in ages when it started, daily mental life etc. I am not nearly as intense though.

As a child, I would have said, “I’m sad” because I didn’t know anything or have the tools to say how sad I was and, well, it was the 70s, kids that young didn’t get depressed.

I’ve, luckily for me, only ever had one bout of profound depression that reached a fully suicidal state. It haunts me, terrifies me because I was so, not me, my coping strategies were failing me, I needed help and refused to admit it, covered everything up during the day and was a wreck at night. To this day, I think about that day, every day. Every day I think about what a relief it would be for a plane to fall out of the sky on me or a truck or a car lose control and take me out or any number of thoughts like that.

Like Spice Weasel, I don’t do anything to help it along because I have Kids and Grand Kids and one coping strategy I developed along the way somewhere and how, is to be a forward looking person. Can’t get much more forward looking than kids.

But still, the thoughts are there, every time I get in the truck at work to drive up that two lane highway to the ski resort during the winter in the snow, or out across the desert to that gambling resort in the summer

32

As a child, I would have said, “I’m sad” because I didn’t know anything or have the tools to say how sad I was and, well, it was the 70s, kids that young didn’t get depressed.

100% this. I was in my teens in the 70’s and even though my depression manifested itself in bouts of anger, waking up and punching the walls and cutting, there was never any suggestion by anyone in my family that I go to a therapist. It just wasn’t done. Sending me to a therapist would be a shame on the family.

The only time it was said was when I was having a bout of anger and my brother said “Cant you see he needs help!”. My father was silent.

Edit: Rereading your OP, this is a more direct answer, at least for me. I wasn’t until the 90’s when my girlfriend talked/forced me into therapy for for anger management, anger which was largely directed towards her for giving me a reason to keep living. I was in therapy for six months and a low dosage of Prozac because the doctor said I had a chemical imbalance because I banged my head so often, even up to that time in my thirties. Finally the doctor said we had gone as far as we could. I asked him if I needed to continue to take Prozac. He said I had two choices, continue for the rest of my life or if I thought I’ve learned to handle things, I could stop. I chose to stop.

My girlfriend left a few months later after my father unexpectedly died. I went into a deep non-anger filled depression and temporary transference of his personality. This was decades ago and I’ve managed to control my anger, but the depression remains.

33

Addendum:

I never told anyone I was going to therapy except my Dad as I disclosed to him the possibility of the need to take Prozac for the rest of my life, at $60 a month. I told him he’d be responsible for paying for it because a large part of my anger/depression was because his mistreatment of me when I was younger. I don’t remember what he said, but he was mostly silent. That was the last heart to heart talk we had.

34

Same here. I spent the later 2/3 of my time in grad school harboring suicidal fantasies. The main driver was fear of moving on to the next stage of my life - actual adulthood in the real world - but also a strong sense of imposter syndrome (I felt like I didn’t measure up to the intellect of my fellow grad students) and problems with my self-image as a man. The fantasies were an outlet, a kind of a “we’ve got your back if things get too bad” thing. AIUI, this is also why some terminally ill folks get their medically assisted death prescriptions filled, but never use them: the knowledge that there’s a way out if/when things really go to shit is comforting.

Agree with this, and have been through same. For me it was all background fantasies until I left grad school and got halfway through my very first day of work. In the middle of a meeting I was so miserable that I started actually rolling through what methods would be available to me after I got home at the end of the day. I quickly recognized that this had elevated to a crisis, and instead called an employee assistance line after getting home.

Anyone who starts thinking in very specific ways about the logistics of how/when to end their lives should recognize that kind of shift in thought as a fire alarm of sorts and should reach out for help.

35

Whether is was reasonable in the set-up of the drama of the TV show is a side issue if it was the over-arching message of the show. It’s a bad message.

36

Hi everyone,
Fortunately not currently depressed, thanks to medication. But I am a psychiatrist and so I deal with this stuff on an almost daily basis as well.
There’s two things I always discuss when someone comes to me with suicidal thoughts. First is what has been mentioned already: do you want to end your life or do you want THIS RIGHT HERE to stop, because THIS RIGHT HERE is unbearable and if the only way to end this is to end myself then so be it? As far as I can tell after a good ten years in this profession the latter is more common and is easier to address.
Secondly, I want to know whether suicidal thoughts are, as Didi44 describes, somehow a safety valve, in the sense that “if life keeps on sucking like this, I’ll have a way out.” as long as it’s on the back burner, so to speak, I’m inclined to believe that it actually helps making the here and now more bearable.
I grew up with a chronically depressed mother who was at times bordering on psychotic and actively suicidal, in the sense that it wasn’t safe to leave her alone. Those times she was convinced that everyone would be better off if she killed herself, and there was little or no convincing her otherwise. Unfortunately a couple of her relatives have done just that, and my grandfather (her dad) and at least one of her sibs have been where my mother was at the time.
The first time I experienced suicidal thoughts I was about 20, and it scared me shitless. On the other hand there was this immense relief of being able to choose for myself if my life was worth living. Some morbid form of newfound autonomy if you will.
In spite (and probably because) of my background I chose to become a psychiatrist. What I’ve learned from experience is that most of the time providing holding space and actually being there means a lot more than prescribing the right pills, although they can literally be life saving. To somehow be somewhat of a refuge so people are less alone with all of it. And if people tell me they don’t trust themselves that needs to be addressed. Also if they have detailed plans and preparations or are under the influence of hallucinations.
And yes, these thoughts tend to be sticky. Also a message to us psych pros to actually help people live with it instead of trying to make it go away.

For me It’s been mostly my first episode of major depression where I have had suicidal thoughts for a prolonged period of time. The second episode I was a resident, and thank God I had a colleague who had also sufferd from MDD. I was very much in denial, especially since I was training to become a psychiatrist, and didn’t want anyone to know. She cut right though the bullshit and told me to get help and go on meds. Since then I’ve had occasional bouts of darkness, postpartum as well as in reaction to extreme pressure at work, but mostly It’s doable. I do remember being in that headspace when my children were already born and that was absolutely horrible. Nowadays i know I need to slow down and take care of myself whenever I’m at the abyss, so to speak. But all of it remains work in progress.
I’m really glad this is a topic of conversation, especially here. I like this board and the people who hang out here and it’s wonderful to see that we can safely talk about this. I hope I’ve made a tiny contribution to that.
Take care everyone.

37

Thanks to @Drsunflower1 because you have confirmed my view of my depression and my ability to function with it. I will keep putting one foot in front of the other and ask for help if/when things get really bad again. Heck, I’ve made it to 60 now by doing just that.

38

This. And the asking for help part gets easier with practice, IME. My colleagues know, and are not afraid to speak up if they’re worried. Plus I’ve learned to inform them when I think I’m heading there. This in turn hopefully provides a safe space for others to speak up.
Glad to hear you appreciate my story and that you’re able to cope.

39

And I’ve made it to 71 by doing it. Being able to say it out loud is critical-takes a lot of the power away. My mental bumper sticker is: this too shall pass. Then I start muttering under my breath, “just live through the next hour, then til morning, then until the next day after that” and before you know it you’re 71 and have found the Dope with kindred spirits.

40

This gives me hope, thank you. Luckily my mom is still around as well. And quite happy about it.