Posted by mair on April 6, 2005, at 16:05:43
In reply to Re: suicidal ideation an addiction? *possible trig, posted by B2chica on April 6, 2005, at 6:39:00
I'm jumping in pretty late here.
I know all about the seduction. I think of it as a siren song of suicide. I've been dealing with it for years - sometimes it's just fleeting thoughts, sometimes it's more of a preoccupation, and occasionally its become something of an obsession. It's always felt impulsive to me. I think if I thought about it for even a fairly brief period of time, I'd always choose not to kill myself. I've never been able to convince myself that my kids would be better off without me, and actually I believe I would do them great damage by ending my life in this way. I also have myself convinced that it would be horrible to try to commit suicide and fail and thus to me, the only sure method is to shoot myself. I don't own a gun or have easy access to one. I've decided that convincing myself that this is the only way to kill myself is actually a built in safeguard against actually doing it. In a strange way, it's my own self-protection. I've thought alot sometimes about buying a gun just to have one on hand, but I know that would be very dangerous for me because the impulse is sometimes so strong.
I'm pretty horrified by how easy it is for my suicidal ideation to be triggered. It honestly doesn't take much - feeling too much pressure at work, worrying about money or a bill I forgot to pay in addition to those irksome generalized feelings of worthlessness and despair. I'm not sure what my motivation is - sometimes maybe it's to escape pain and sometimes maybe it's just to escape a perceived embarrassment. If I'm able to step back for a moment, I can usually see that my reasons are pretty flimsy. Also daisy mentioned secondary benefits. I don't think there are any -I'm quite uncomfortable thinking about it, and extremely uncomfortable talking about it. And no one in the world knows what a preoccupation it can be other than my T and pdoc, so it's not like I use it as a threat with anyone.
One of the better things my T has done for me is to make me feel fairly comfortable talking about it to her. It helps me to feel less isolated in my suffering, and she's come to understand that I'm more talk than action, so she doesn't overreact. I think it's also made me feel more of a commitment to her to call her before I do anything disastrous, and I think she now trusts me more. She did point out to me yesterday that in the previous session, for the first time, I refused to promise her that I'd call her first, but I don't think that really shook her confidence much.
It's also interesting to me that she used to never enter into the equation at all when I'd think about suicide. In fact I used to fantasize that it wouldn't matter to her at all. Now I find myself imaging how it would affect her, both professionally and personally. It's annoying to me that I have to think of her as well, but I guess whatever works to stop me is probably a good thing.
mair
poster:mair
thread:480204
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050329/msgs/480794.html