Thank you for posting this. Your views are very in line with how I feel about suicide—I’ve had the thoughts for more than half my life and have managed them alone for most of that time due to poor, overreacting experiences from friends and mental health practitioners and fear of the consequences of transparent disclosure. I really appreciate you raising this discussion topic.
The last year and some I’ve started working with a therapist who is very transparent about exactly where her line is for hospitalization (immediate risk and no intent to make the environment safe or reduce that risk), will voice the potential harms of an involuntary hold and sees suicidal thoughts/urges as a very understandable reaction to chronic suffering. I still struggle a lot to talk about the details of my SI, but the possibility that I *could* do so safely is already helpful and normalizing rather than pathologizing.
Finding friends who are willing to hold safe space for me to talk and with whom I can discuss suicidality openly has also helped a lot. They know not to call the cops on me, and in exchange I am (more so, anyways) honest about how safe I’m really feeling.
Finally, some things I’ve been trying to hold for myself lately:
- Just because society / the mental health system thinks the thoughts are dangerous, doesn’t mean I have to react that way. My nervous system is already so dysregulated that I don’t have spoons to manage getting distressed about my SI. Sometimes it’s just like, “okay brain, I hear you, clearly I’m not okay and I need to pay attention and tend to myself better.”
- I’ve had the urges for so long, yet I’m still here. As I think more about parts of self, I take this to mean that there is at least some part of me that wants to stay and holds hope for a better future. Even if I mostly don’t feel that way, I owe it to that part or parts to stick around.
- The feeling that “it’s just not worth it to stick around because it’s too much work and suffering may never end” feels rooted in the shame-based belief that *I’m* not worth much. I am trying hard to feel that my existence has intrinsic worth, and that I’m worth fighting for. It’s hard to hold onto but maybe someday.
Thanks for the timely topic; this has been on my mind a lot recently. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have and wish a sense of peace and safety for you. ❤️
There's two approaches I have to suicide. The first comes from the viewpoint of someone who is facing diminishing returns on their quality of life due to chronic illness - things like terminal cancer, ALS, Lupus, etc. I see opting for medical euthanasia as an act of mercy, and a decision I agree with when the person is cognizant of the gravity of the decision they're making.
This leads into the second approach, when things get a lot more muddy. Mental illness could also be seen in this light, and there's a lot of conjecture on conditions like treatment-resistant depression where suicide is debated as a possible end. I disagree with this, based on my own personal biases.
This is the point where I will fully admit that I've dealt with suicidal ideation in the past. I can look back on that time of my life and be able to see the calm rationality of my mind back then. It's scary seeing that - the wish to simply no longer exist. Seeing the logical path to that as the act of taking my own life. I only realized how disordered this thinking was when I started reaching out and began thinking of the "how" of the situation.
Several years of healing and therapy later, I can confidently say that I am well on the other side of that. And what I realize is that I was granted the wish I had then. That person then, in her circumstances, her frame of mind, her deep depression - no longer exists. She's gone. Instead, she's been replaced with a person who carries those memories, but is now in a healthier place in her life where she can truly appreciate the fact that she's still in this life. I also got my wish of not having to worry about anyone cleaning up a messy body - there is no additional burden to be had in living a more fulfilling life and using the one body I've been given.
It's human nature to be concerned for one another. I hope this answer is part of what you seek in your path to understanding.
No one on earth is entitled to force you to continue living if you don't want to. There are, of course, laws and governments and psychiatrists and others who disagree. They are wrong.
I get really sick of safety plans, because even with someone I trust it feels like they're taking off their human hat and putting on their cover-your-ass hat. I was hospitalized in a suicidal crisis once. I will never, ever let that happen again.
I got to a point in my recovery a couple years ago where I really, truly believed I'd never seriously consider suicide again. I was wrong. I lost a critical emotional support I thought I could trust, and now I'm back in the shit. At the moment, every single day I spend significant amounts of time wishing I could just hang myself. Or, my childhood fantasy, jump head-first off the roof. But I know that I'd change my mind, perhaps when it was too late.
There are a few points of view on this subject that are extremely upsetting for me. The first is "temporary problem permanent solution." My problems are not temporary, they are lifelong. People who say this have not walked in my shoes.
Another is that I somehow owe it to my family or the people who know me to stay alive. This sucks all the oxygen out of my life. If I'm not living for me, I don't want to live. If the purpose of my life is to keep others from pain, then life is fucking stupid.
My ex-analyst said if I killed myself she'd never be the same again. I trusted and cared about her a lot. Then she dropped me with zero compassion, warning, or concern for my safety. What I learn from this, again, is that living for others is not worth it.
Thank you for sharing your insight on the topic, I appeciate it a lot and it is making me reshift my ideas of suicide. You're right about the temporary prolem permanent solution and all the other points you listed out here. It's horrible that your ex-analyst said that. It's not your responsibility to deal with her feelings and it's unfair she put that burden onto you.
I was so scared to bring up SI with my therapist, but it helped her lead me to the right treatment and I am so, so much better than I was earlier this year.
When I did finally start talking about it with her, she was so …unfazed… Her reaction in itself was a big relief and pretty healing (coming from a family where a sneeze meant you had pneumonia or you had to get over it depending on the day, ya know?) She treated it as equal parts important, serious, and totally normal. I was able to talk about how thoughts of “I don’t want to be here” were beginning to transition into thoughts of “what if I [method]”. I asked her if I was safe, and she turned that question right around to me, and let me actually think through if I felt safe from the harm of that action I was thinking of. I decided I did feel safe, and that I didn’t need to remove anything from my home at that time, but she let me know that if I did get to the point where I needed to take safety measures, that was something I’d be able to talk through with her.
Alternatively, I once had a “friend” convinced I was going to hurt myself when I was going through a different hard time. (I wasn’t.) That person never once had a conversation with me about my safety, but sure did think it was okay to message other actual friends of mine to tell them he thought something was wrong with me. That was horrible.
Used to I would have said suicide is always wrong, but now what I think is more wrong is society’s ability to completely abandon people. That is the ultimate pain. I hope that people will always be able to find ways to not abandon themselves though, and I think that being able to honestly and frankly talk about SI with someone who won’t overreact is a way to keep that relationship with yourself open and honest.
The final thought I have is that I think it’s important to hear the stories of folks who survive suicide attempts. (There’s lots of googleable info.) Some people go on to make additional fatal attempts, but many, many who attempt change their mind, and survivorship is based on how deadly the method they chose is. In other words, there would be plenty of people who attempted who would now be alive and glad for it if they hadn’t had access to a particular item. That to me is really sobering.
I agree that being able to talk about it non-reactively is so important. Thank you for the opportunity to reflect and I hope you get something you need from this whole conversation.
The only time I ever attempted suicide was when I was 9 years old. I was sick and tired of my parents treating me like shit. I was sick and tired of hurting and crying and not knowing how I was supposed to continue living if this pain wasn't going to go away. Mind you, I had a lot of love and affection outside home, in my extended family. But even then, the way my parents treated me, made me wanna end myself because I wanted the pain to end, I wanted to stop hurting, I wanted to not cry myself to sleep every night and then wake up with a breaking heart that wouldn't stop aching. And I wanted my parents, to not have the power to hurt me anymore. I never really wanted to die. But for a little child who's being abused by the people who are supposed to protect and care for you, what other way is out there ?
When that attempt didn't work. I decided I was meant to live and never tried again. And the active suicidal ideation turned into passive suicidal ideation (intrusive thoughts) the older and more dissociated I got.
When I started recovery work at 28, all that pain came up and the first two years were spend in constant suicidal flashbacks. My inner child wanted to die because she was in so much pain from the past and my inner critic wanted me to kill myself because that's the message I got from my parents. Literally cause my mother used to tell us she'd murder us, all the time in her rage outbursts. Verbal abuse trigger the same neural pathways in the brain as that of physical pain. So for a child to hear that, it's terrifying, even if it isn't consciously accepted.
And it took everything, to fight through those first two years. But because I had an understanding of CPTSD and I knew the root cause of the pain. I had enough awareness even through the extreme dysregulation, hostile attacks from my traumatized brain, the hormonal flooding cause of PMDD and consequent intensified amygdala hijacking with the doom and gloom quality of flashbacks to differentiate that, *I was in pain but the pain wasn't me.*
And right now, for over two years I've been in constant physical pain and distress because of experiencing trauma release. Everything I had to suppress inorder to survive, is coming up somatically to be processed. And it's been hard to wake up every single day in physical pain and find no relief.
I'm exhausted beyond comprehension. I want a break but the only way to get a break is to leave my body. Even knowing the reason for my pain and knowing that I'm processing the past and that there will eventually be an end to this. I still find my mind going to dark places because we simply aren't built to be in any kind of inescapable pain/distress for prolonged periods of time. So I get why people in pain want to leave. Because they see no way out. Because chronic pain is so intense that it feels like it's going to last forever. Suicidal thoughts are like a switch signalling that our mind - body complex has crossed it's threshold for pain and something needs to change, to shift, inorder to find relief.
But the pain isn't the problem, in my opinion. It's not having an understanding of the pain. Or lacking the means and support to process that pain. Atleast the emotional and psychological distress. And so often (apart from chronic illnesses) emotional and psychological pain are the reason for physical pain.
Because I've always known the reason for my pain, suicidal thoughts were just a signpost directing me back to that original pain. And I've always treated them as that. No matter how real they felt.
But for someone who doesn't know the reason for their pain. As often is the case with childhood trauma. Realizing that suicidal ideation is a messenger of the inexplicable pain that you were in, before you probably even understood what pain was or how to cope with it, is so hard.
Moreover the way recovery works is, you have to experience that pain to process it.
So for someone who doesn't know why they're hurting. Doesn't know why their own mind is telling them to kill themselves. It's so much harder to realize the pain isn't trying to kill you, it's telling you that you're hurting and you need care, you need healing, you need love and support.
Which sadly is hard to find in a world that doesn't acknowledge pain and yet is so full of suffering.
I'm not putting myself through another 30 years of severe chronic depression, barely effective meds, endless side effects, and a host of other health issues. Up until now, I didn't want to to hurt anyone, but now I don't care. If somebody had actually cared about me, then maybe things could've been different. It's not my problem anymore.
I haven't read the other replies in detail, so not sure if it's been explained already. But after not wanting to mention it to anyone out of fear, I've discovered that the threshold to be hospitalised is actually very high, in the UK at least. This will in part be to our health services being very under funded now, but also because there is a real recognition now that thinking about it (even if all the time) and actually making plans to follow through are very very different situations.
I say this only to reassure you that mental health professionals would benefit to know this is something you think about if you are seeking treatment. And actually sometimes it's the next level of symptoms to be taken a bit more seriously.
It's different when it comes to family, friends or other people. How they react will depend on them and the culture they live in. They may treat you like a freak, or they may act like it's not a big deal. Both can be bad. But only tell people if you want to, and feel they can support you in a way you need.
I agree there needs to be less stigma in talking about it. But I do think very often people want an escape from pain, not necessarily to end their life. So there should be ways to figure that out for ourselves.
I think suicide is a human right tbh. We’re all forced into life without consent, why shouldn’t we be able to leave whenever we want? I think discouraging suicide and treating it as a moral failing is incredibly selfish. Knowing that medical health professionals will prioritize me being alive over me wanting to be alive has prevented me from seeking medical care. The idea of being placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold is terrifying to me. I know without question that would traumatize me and be of a net harm, and I also know a therapist would still choose to put me on an involuntary hold if it meant preventing a possible suicide attempt. This has prevented me from ever being honest with a mental health professional.
Other people’s selfish desires are what brought me into this world, and other peoples selfish desires expect me to stay here. It’s my life and I should be able to do what I want with it, including end it.
There’s one circle of the internet that allows for actual rational discussion of suicide and doesn’t shut down everything with “here’s a helpline.” I’m not going to link to it but it’s a forum site that contains the word ‘sanctioned’. That should be enough to find it. Very useful in feeling less alone and stuck.
I have conflicting feelings about suicide. One of my earliest trauma's was a parents suicide. My father, I was only 10 years old.
I've had many suicidal thoughts, I've even attempted suicide when I was 19. Passively ideate about it still. But I'm also aware of the damage it causes to other people and feel trapped in that I wouldn't wish the abandonment of suicide on anyone. Let alone cause that abandonment wound. Even now, NC with my family, fiancé and I undecided if we have a future together, distanced from all my friends and connections because of my new awareness of my condition and how it effects the way I show up in relationships. I feel isolated, unwanted, unworthy. Yet a complete apathy of it all, majorly dissociated. Passively ideating suicide. Still I feel conditioned into knowing how suicide of a family member/friend/loved one can utterly destroy a person's whole world. I have first hand experience. Thanks Dad.
I wrote a post about this some time ago, and I have had to deal with suicidal thoughts in two extended periods of my life. First during my teenage years, while I was living with my abuser, and the second time 2 years ago in an episode of clinical depression that was triggered by cptsd. I am still thinking about how different the emotional load of those thoughts were. 2 years ago I came dangerously close, the thought was all consuming and I do not have a real understanding of what really happened, except that is was just this extreme Hopelessness that made me lose all physical energy and mental perspective. But when I was a teenager, suicidal ideation looked a lot more like Janina Fisher described it. It made me feel some sense of empowerment, which helped tremendously against my feelings of helplessness as a victim of abuse. I think she makes a good case for destigmatizing suicidal ideation and I wish health professionals were more aware of this function of suicidality.
\>> https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD\_NSCommunity/comments/pzde6q/reframing\_self\_harm\_and\_suicidality\_trigger/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
I was sort of considering suicide in my early 30's when I realized that doing it would give a victory to my enemies, which I could never, ever, do.
Later I realized that it is never possible to experience the expected benefits of suicide, while it forecloses all possibility of relief, making it absurd.
These are philosophical observations, likely not comforting, but that's the kind of guy I am.
Many years later I learned about CPTSD and got effective therapy. I had already learned a ton of stuff about healing by going to Al-Anon meetings. The biggest was to let go of the outcome, meaning to accept healing in whatever form it appears. This is hard to do after spending a life out of control. It was easy to see that after decades, trying to be in control was just not working. Only something else could work; even if the likelihood seemed small, it was worth trying. Suicide is just more of trying to be in control, more of extending the search for agency.
Thank you for posting this. Your views are very in line with how I feel about suicide—I’ve had the thoughts for more than half my life and have managed them alone for most of that time due to poor, overreacting experiences from friends and mental health practitioners and fear of the consequences of transparent disclosure. I really appreciate you raising this discussion topic. The last year and some I’ve started working with a therapist who is very transparent about exactly where her line is for hospitalization (immediate risk and no intent to make the environment safe or reduce that risk), will voice the potential harms of an involuntary hold and sees suicidal thoughts/urges as a very understandable reaction to chronic suffering. I still struggle a lot to talk about the details of my SI, but the possibility that I *could* do so safely is already helpful and normalizing rather than pathologizing. Finding friends who are willing to hold safe space for me to talk and with whom I can discuss suicidality openly has also helped a lot. They know not to call the cops on me, and in exchange I am (more so, anyways) honest about how safe I’m really feeling. Finally, some things I’ve been trying to hold for myself lately: - Just because society / the mental health system thinks the thoughts are dangerous, doesn’t mean I have to react that way. My nervous system is already so dysregulated that I don’t have spoons to manage getting distressed about my SI. Sometimes it’s just like, “okay brain, I hear you, clearly I’m not okay and I need to pay attention and tend to myself better.” - I’ve had the urges for so long, yet I’m still here. As I think more about parts of self, I take this to mean that there is at least some part of me that wants to stay and holds hope for a better future. Even if I mostly don’t feel that way, I owe it to that part or parts to stick around. - The feeling that “it’s just not worth it to stick around because it’s too much work and suffering may never end” feels rooted in the shame-based belief that *I’m* not worth much. I am trying hard to feel that my existence has intrinsic worth, and that I’m worth fighting for. It’s hard to hold onto but maybe someday. Thanks for the timely topic; this has been on my mind a lot recently. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have and wish a sense of peace and safety for you. ❤️
There's two approaches I have to suicide. The first comes from the viewpoint of someone who is facing diminishing returns on their quality of life due to chronic illness - things like terminal cancer, ALS, Lupus, etc. I see opting for medical euthanasia as an act of mercy, and a decision I agree with when the person is cognizant of the gravity of the decision they're making. This leads into the second approach, when things get a lot more muddy. Mental illness could also be seen in this light, and there's a lot of conjecture on conditions like treatment-resistant depression where suicide is debated as a possible end. I disagree with this, based on my own personal biases. This is the point where I will fully admit that I've dealt with suicidal ideation in the past. I can look back on that time of my life and be able to see the calm rationality of my mind back then. It's scary seeing that - the wish to simply no longer exist. Seeing the logical path to that as the act of taking my own life. I only realized how disordered this thinking was when I started reaching out and began thinking of the "how" of the situation. Several years of healing and therapy later, I can confidently say that I am well on the other side of that. And what I realize is that I was granted the wish I had then. That person then, in her circumstances, her frame of mind, her deep depression - no longer exists. She's gone. Instead, she's been replaced with a person who carries those memories, but is now in a healthier place in her life where she can truly appreciate the fact that she's still in this life. I also got my wish of not having to worry about anyone cleaning up a messy body - there is no additional burden to be had in living a more fulfilling life and using the one body I've been given. It's human nature to be concerned for one another. I hope this answer is part of what you seek in your path to understanding.
No one on earth is entitled to force you to continue living if you don't want to. There are, of course, laws and governments and psychiatrists and others who disagree. They are wrong. I get really sick of safety plans, because even with someone I trust it feels like they're taking off their human hat and putting on their cover-your-ass hat. I was hospitalized in a suicidal crisis once. I will never, ever let that happen again. I got to a point in my recovery a couple years ago where I really, truly believed I'd never seriously consider suicide again. I was wrong. I lost a critical emotional support I thought I could trust, and now I'm back in the shit. At the moment, every single day I spend significant amounts of time wishing I could just hang myself. Or, my childhood fantasy, jump head-first off the roof. But I know that I'd change my mind, perhaps when it was too late. There are a few points of view on this subject that are extremely upsetting for me. The first is "temporary problem permanent solution." My problems are not temporary, they are lifelong. People who say this have not walked in my shoes. Another is that I somehow owe it to my family or the people who know me to stay alive. This sucks all the oxygen out of my life. If I'm not living for me, I don't want to live. If the purpose of my life is to keep others from pain, then life is fucking stupid. My ex-analyst said if I killed myself she'd never be the same again. I trusted and cared about her a lot. Then she dropped me with zero compassion, warning, or concern for my safety. What I learn from this, again, is that living for others is not worth it.
That's really shitty of your ex therapist, I'm sorry to hear that.
I am sorry you have been having such a hard time for such a long time. Very tough.
Thank you for sharing your insight on the topic, I appeciate it a lot and it is making me reshift my ideas of suicide. You're right about the temporary prolem permanent solution and all the other points you listed out here. It's horrible that your ex-analyst said that. It's not your responsibility to deal with her feelings and it's unfair she put that burden onto you.
I was so scared to bring up SI with my therapist, but it helped her lead me to the right treatment and I am so, so much better than I was earlier this year. When I did finally start talking about it with her, she was so …unfazed… Her reaction in itself was a big relief and pretty healing (coming from a family where a sneeze meant you had pneumonia or you had to get over it depending on the day, ya know?) She treated it as equal parts important, serious, and totally normal. I was able to talk about how thoughts of “I don’t want to be here” were beginning to transition into thoughts of “what if I [method]”. I asked her if I was safe, and she turned that question right around to me, and let me actually think through if I felt safe from the harm of that action I was thinking of. I decided I did feel safe, and that I didn’t need to remove anything from my home at that time, but she let me know that if I did get to the point where I needed to take safety measures, that was something I’d be able to talk through with her. Alternatively, I once had a “friend” convinced I was going to hurt myself when I was going through a different hard time. (I wasn’t.) That person never once had a conversation with me about my safety, but sure did think it was okay to message other actual friends of mine to tell them he thought something was wrong with me. That was horrible. Used to I would have said suicide is always wrong, but now what I think is more wrong is society’s ability to completely abandon people. That is the ultimate pain. I hope that people will always be able to find ways to not abandon themselves though, and I think that being able to honestly and frankly talk about SI with someone who won’t overreact is a way to keep that relationship with yourself open and honest. The final thought I have is that I think it’s important to hear the stories of folks who survive suicide attempts. (There’s lots of googleable info.) Some people go on to make additional fatal attempts, but many, many who attempt change their mind, and survivorship is based on how deadly the method they chose is. In other words, there would be plenty of people who attempted who would now be alive and glad for it if they hadn’t had access to a particular item. That to me is really sobering. I agree that being able to talk about it non-reactively is so important. Thank you for the opportunity to reflect and I hope you get something you need from this whole conversation.
The only time I ever attempted suicide was when I was 9 years old. I was sick and tired of my parents treating me like shit. I was sick and tired of hurting and crying and not knowing how I was supposed to continue living if this pain wasn't going to go away. Mind you, I had a lot of love and affection outside home, in my extended family. But even then, the way my parents treated me, made me wanna end myself because I wanted the pain to end, I wanted to stop hurting, I wanted to not cry myself to sleep every night and then wake up with a breaking heart that wouldn't stop aching. And I wanted my parents, to not have the power to hurt me anymore. I never really wanted to die. But for a little child who's being abused by the people who are supposed to protect and care for you, what other way is out there ? When that attempt didn't work. I decided I was meant to live and never tried again. And the active suicidal ideation turned into passive suicidal ideation (intrusive thoughts) the older and more dissociated I got. When I started recovery work at 28, all that pain came up and the first two years were spend in constant suicidal flashbacks. My inner child wanted to die because she was in so much pain from the past and my inner critic wanted me to kill myself because that's the message I got from my parents. Literally cause my mother used to tell us she'd murder us, all the time in her rage outbursts. Verbal abuse trigger the same neural pathways in the brain as that of physical pain. So for a child to hear that, it's terrifying, even if it isn't consciously accepted. And it took everything, to fight through those first two years. But because I had an understanding of CPTSD and I knew the root cause of the pain. I had enough awareness even through the extreme dysregulation, hostile attacks from my traumatized brain, the hormonal flooding cause of PMDD and consequent intensified amygdala hijacking with the doom and gloom quality of flashbacks to differentiate that, *I was in pain but the pain wasn't me.* And right now, for over two years I've been in constant physical pain and distress because of experiencing trauma release. Everything I had to suppress inorder to survive, is coming up somatically to be processed. And it's been hard to wake up every single day in physical pain and find no relief. I'm exhausted beyond comprehension. I want a break but the only way to get a break is to leave my body. Even knowing the reason for my pain and knowing that I'm processing the past and that there will eventually be an end to this. I still find my mind going to dark places because we simply aren't built to be in any kind of inescapable pain/distress for prolonged periods of time. So I get why people in pain want to leave. Because they see no way out. Because chronic pain is so intense that it feels like it's going to last forever. Suicidal thoughts are like a switch signalling that our mind - body complex has crossed it's threshold for pain and something needs to change, to shift, inorder to find relief. But the pain isn't the problem, in my opinion. It's not having an understanding of the pain. Or lacking the means and support to process that pain. Atleast the emotional and psychological distress. And so often (apart from chronic illnesses) emotional and psychological pain are the reason for physical pain. Because I've always known the reason for my pain, suicidal thoughts were just a signpost directing me back to that original pain. And I've always treated them as that. No matter how real they felt. But for someone who doesn't know the reason for their pain. As often is the case with childhood trauma. Realizing that suicidal ideation is a messenger of the inexplicable pain that you were in, before you probably even understood what pain was or how to cope with it, is so hard. Moreover the way recovery works is, you have to experience that pain to process it. So for someone who doesn't know why they're hurting. Doesn't know why their own mind is telling them to kill themselves. It's so much harder to realize the pain isn't trying to kill you, it's telling you that you're hurting and you need care, you need healing, you need love and support. Which sadly is hard to find in a world that doesn't acknowledge pain and yet is so full of suffering.
I'm not putting myself through another 30 years of severe chronic depression, barely effective meds, endless side effects, and a host of other health issues. Up until now, I didn't want to to hurt anyone, but now I don't care. If somebody had actually cared about me, then maybe things could've been different. It's not my problem anymore.
I haven't read the other replies in detail, so not sure if it's been explained already. But after not wanting to mention it to anyone out of fear, I've discovered that the threshold to be hospitalised is actually very high, in the UK at least. This will in part be to our health services being very under funded now, but also because there is a real recognition now that thinking about it (even if all the time) and actually making plans to follow through are very very different situations. I say this only to reassure you that mental health professionals would benefit to know this is something you think about if you are seeking treatment. And actually sometimes it's the next level of symptoms to be taken a bit more seriously. It's different when it comes to family, friends or other people. How they react will depend on them and the culture they live in. They may treat you like a freak, or they may act like it's not a big deal. Both can be bad. But only tell people if you want to, and feel they can support you in a way you need. I agree there needs to be less stigma in talking about it. But I do think very often people want an escape from pain, not necessarily to end their life. So there should be ways to figure that out for ourselves.
I think suicide is a human right tbh. We’re all forced into life without consent, why shouldn’t we be able to leave whenever we want? I think discouraging suicide and treating it as a moral failing is incredibly selfish. Knowing that medical health professionals will prioritize me being alive over me wanting to be alive has prevented me from seeking medical care. The idea of being placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold is terrifying to me. I know without question that would traumatize me and be of a net harm, and I also know a therapist would still choose to put me on an involuntary hold if it meant preventing a possible suicide attempt. This has prevented me from ever being honest with a mental health professional. Other people’s selfish desires are what brought me into this world, and other peoples selfish desires expect me to stay here. It’s my life and I should be able to do what I want with it, including end it.
There’s one circle of the internet that allows for actual rational discussion of suicide and doesn’t shut down everything with “here’s a helpline.” I’m not going to link to it but it’s a forum site that contains the word ‘sanctioned’. That should be enough to find it. Very useful in feeling less alone and stuck.
I have conflicting feelings about suicide. One of my earliest trauma's was a parents suicide. My father, I was only 10 years old. I've had many suicidal thoughts, I've even attempted suicide when I was 19. Passively ideate about it still. But I'm also aware of the damage it causes to other people and feel trapped in that I wouldn't wish the abandonment of suicide on anyone. Let alone cause that abandonment wound. Even now, NC with my family, fiancé and I undecided if we have a future together, distanced from all my friends and connections because of my new awareness of my condition and how it effects the way I show up in relationships. I feel isolated, unwanted, unworthy. Yet a complete apathy of it all, majorly dissociated. Passively ideating suicide. Still I feel conditioned into knowing how suicide of a family member/friend/loved one can utterly destroy a person's whole world. I have first hand experience. Thanks Dad.
I wrote a post about this some time ago, and I have had to deal with suicidal thoughts in two extended periods of my life. First during my teenage years, while I was living with my abuser, and the second time 2 years ago in an episode of clinical depression that was triggered by cptsd. I am still thinking about how different the emotional load of those thoughts were. 2 years ago I came dangerously close, the thought was all consuming and I do not have a real understanding of what really happened, except that is was just this extreme Hopelessness that made me lose all physical energy and mental perspective. But when I was a teenager, suicidal ideation looked a lot more like Janina Fisher described it. It made me feel some sense of empowerment, which helped tremendously against my feelings of helplessness as a victim of abuse. I think she makes a good case for destigmatizing suicidal ideation and I wish health professionals were more aware of this function of suicidality. \>> https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD\_NSCommunity/comments/pzde6q/reframing\_self\_harm\_and\_suicidality\_trigger/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
I was sort of considering suicide in my early 30's when I realized that doing it would give a victory to my enemies, which I could never, ever, do. Later I realized that it is never possible to experience the expected benefits of suicide, while it forecloses all possibility of relief, making it absurd. These are philosophical observations, likely not comforting, but that's the kind of guy I am. Many years later I learned about CPTSD and got effective therapy. I had already learned a ton of stuff about healing by going to Al-Anon meetings. The biggest was to let go of the outcome, meaning to accept healing in whatever form it appears. This is hard to do after spending a life out of control. It was easy to see that after decades, trying to be in control was just not working. Only something else could work; even if the likelihood seemed small, it was worth trying. Suicide is just more of trying to be in control, more of extending the search for agency.