Recovering from suicide attempt and suicide ideation

Health and Recovery
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There is been some talk lately on this issue, and I thought it would be cool if we shared our little stories on how we overcame this problem and the steps towards recovery when it comes to suicide ideation and our own suicide attempts. We can help others with the different perspectives on the issue.

For me personally, like I said before here, it was an easy way out. I only tried once.

I was in a very abusive relationship and was in deep depression, I didn’t want professional help, and refused any help people tried to give me, and that led to some friends giving up on me. I was seeing black shadows hanging by people more frequently, and every time I saw them I had a panic attack.

Well, on that day specifically, it was my moms birthday and me and my abusive boyfriend went to her birthday lunch at a restaurant, it was an okay lunch and as we left he started getting verbally abusive, we were together for about three years at the time, and this wasn’t the first time that happened so I started crying asking him to stop. He continued. He has a kid, and the kid was 4 years old and was with us at that moment, spending the weekend. The kid started telling him not to say those things at me, and I cried harder. The kid already had seen him being physically abusive towards me and he always said “Don’t do that, she’s crying”. We got home, and he continued, saying I was useless and would never achieve anything in life because I didn’t know how to live and should just give up.

I had been drinking at lunch and smoked a joint and decided to ignore him and went to see a disney movie with the kid in the living room, that way he would shut up and it would be over in a minute. But he didn’t shut up, he continued saying all the reasons why I was so useless and boring and sad. I stayed silent, not looking at him and hugging the kid laying on the couch. At that moment, it was like time stopped and I saw shadows everywhere, and remember saying “I can’t live like this anymore” got up, ran through the hallway and tried to trow myself out of window in the other room. He came running after me and stopped me as I was about to trow myself. Blamed me for doing it while the kid was there, called his mom to go and pick up the kid and said the next time he wouldn’t be there to save me.

Compared to other stories this is nothing I know. I went to sleep that day and slept on the couch because I didn’t want to sleep with him. The next day I woke up and went to work, the world seemed better and I regreted the attempt and was happy it didn’t happen. In the course of three months I broke up the three year relationship and kicked him out of the house. I regained strenght, but the suicide ideation didn’t stop.

When I the psychotic break happened I believed the shadow demons were trying for me to commit suicide again and all these thoughts on how to do it were constant in my mind, I talked to my mom about it and she hospitalized me shortly after that.

This past year I’ve been thinking a lot on how I don’t have the need to kill myself anymore and why that is happening. I think, in my case, the fact that I have schizophrenia and taking meds, my only weapon against the shadows, helps a lot. I can dream about the future without being affraid of killing myself on an impulse, although that fear is always present, I’m still affraid of being in apartments over 4 floors.

Living takes courage when you have a mental illness, and I’m learning how to be courageous and fearless with the obstacles life gives me.

I keep reminding myself that life is so beautiful, it has color and the sun and the moon and the universe, shaped clouds and beautiful people. It has gadgets and games. Even the hardships teach us something and we can always have a sunny day after the clouds.

Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading.

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That’s tragic Minnii. Was he abusive to the kid also? I feel bad for the kid for having to live around such a monster, since he will no doubt pick up some of the behaviors.

In my normal unmedicated state of consciousness I’m normally suicidal. Lithium or lamictal are about the only thing that prevent me from being suicidal. Other than medication, just trying to keep my mind occupied on other things keeps it off suicidal thoughts to some degree.

I OD’d on alcohol and sleeping pills a bit over a year ago, initially I thought it was a suicide attempt bc my entire bottle of sleeping pills were gone, but later I found that I had spilled the pills.

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No he wasn’t. Only good thing there. But the kid is starting to go against him, since he broke up with me. The kid missed me a lot, we had a great relationship and I was forbidden to see the kid again after I kicked his father out of the house. His exgirlfriend, the one after me, told a friend of mine that the kid gets angry with him now. That’s good, but I feel sorry for the kid. He’s an adorable and sweet child.

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Yeah, it’s tragic that the kid has to grow up around such a monster.

I’m just curious, what initially attracted you to this guy?

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Yeah me too.

I’m so sorry you are suicidal without meds. Please take good care of yourself.

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My manic sprees of sexual behaviour… Then we took a trip together and it was fun, I had a fight with my mom and she kicked me out of the house and he took me in, later we shared an apartment. I don’t even know, co dependency and self-destructive behaviour mostly. I wanted to die, didn’t really care how I lived. Glad that changed now.

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I can relate to that. When in a hypomanic state sometimes I would be with just about anyone, just to feel loved for a moment. But for good or bad my delusions of grandeur (messiah delusions) always overcame my raging libido.

So how about you? How did you get rid of the suicidal thoughts? Was it medication or some type of change of life/philosophy?

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My first suicide attempt I was living in an apartment, completely alone, on Haldol, with no TV and no computer. I could not stop thinking about morbid things. There is a quote by Nietzsche: “If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” That was what was going on with me. I wanted to escape. I went to Parkside Mental Health Center and asked them to put me on Trazodone, which they did. They gave me a bottle of 90 fifty milligram pills. I’d heard that four grams of Trazodone was enough to kill you. I took the whole bottle. It’s amazing, but the Trazodone had no effect. Apparently, I am immune to any amount of Trazodone. Another time I was in this motel room with gas heating, and I blew out the fire and turned up the gas. It was working. I was going out, but then the gas cut off. There must have been some kind of safety mechanism on the gas heater. One time I had a car fired up in the garage, but the radiator hose broke on it. I still have some suicidal ideation, but it is not too strong now.

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I think it was being held in the hospital that changed my perspective, I read the Tao when I was there, that helped a lot. I think the fact that my mental issues have a diagnosis helped too. When it was me fighting the demons, the only thing that helped were the delusions of grandeur and thinking I could overcome anything because of my divine powers. Later, the suicide ideation continued for a few months and then a friend of mine told me she was contemplating suicide and I just thought “What a cowardly thing to do” and told her that, its a harsh thing to say but we were both thinking about it. That helped her, and so it helped me too. With time my suicidal thoughts kind of vanished, I’m studying stuff I enjoy and looking forward to the future.

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I’m really glad none of those worked. Glad you’re alive crimby.

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Thanks. I’m glad you’re alive too. The world is a better place for you being in it.

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Thank you :blush: Likewise

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My attempts stemmed from an unhealthy relationship where he was intentionally trying to get me to leave so he could blame me for break up and get together with his other girlfriend.
I really didn’t have a problem with him leaving and insisted if he wanted to be with someone else, he should, because it was painfully obvious to me that he didn’t want me and there must have been someone else.

But he denied both to me (and everyone else including his family), then said I need to talk to a professional, a mental health specialist because he didn’t have a problem in our relationship…so it just must be in my head.

Right.

So…he wouldn’t admit doing anything, the meanness continued and got worse…I wanted out, he wouldn’t allow me out, but did leave his gun and ammunition in the house, probably for me…but I was too stupid to know how it worked.
Not that I didn’t try a few times, it just wouldn’t fire. He walked in on me trying to figure it out, clip fully loaded, one in the chamber (I wasn’t completely stupid- just never actually fired one) and he got a little excited, but never took the gun out of the house nor tried to hide it on his weekly business trips 2-4 days at a time.

I made several serious attempts to leave (this earth), but left the gun alone, only with pills and sometimes alcohol mixed.
He eventually got tired of waiting, so he told me the day after xmas (after I got hospitalized that morning) that he was moving across the country to get away from me because I was bringing him down.

It took a few years to get through the rest of that miserable time, but the way I did was to learn how to live by my own wants and ideas instead of hiding in his shadows.

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God, what a terrible person that guy is. Glad you don’t have that person around anymore.

It still amazes me, maybe it shouldn’t, how we allow ourselves to be treated like garbage.

Well, we value your life a lot Csummers, hope you know that.

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I have had plenty of suicidal ideation of some kind, but it doesn’t compare to your experiences. It was like thoughts of this topic kept popping up in my mind, many times a minute for weeks in a row, but I filed them as intrusive thoughts - I have many of those when psychotic and all are taboo topics.

I think this is rather different from genuine suicidal ideation, however, where i suppose you’d also feel inclined to do it. For me it is like I am shocked by these thoughts popping up in my mind, but that shock itself is indicative of some part of me not agreeing with it. It is ofcourse distressing to experience these shocking intrusive thoughts, and to experience them connected with items in the outside world like knives all the time. There was a period in a psychotic break when everything popping op in my mind felt this way, every thought felt beyond my control and every thought I had was shocking and taboo in this sense, including much suicidal ideation. But this is really about losing my mind, not willfully thinking of suicide. Scary as ■■■■, but quite different.

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I do not hear any voices but i am so tired lazy emotionless. I tied noose 3 times but do not have the guts to commit suicide. But i dnt want to live such a life

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I can relate to the taboo subjects intrusive thoughts, they happened for a long while there. Eventually suicide ideation for me ended up in that category as well. I still have intrusive thoughts of that sort, mostly sentences like voices but not quite, of a sexual nature too and suicide thoughts, I am also affraid of knives, but I think self-stigma plays a huge role there. I’m not a violent person, never been. And my anger towards the world turned into something more positive, I don’t really know how, but that changed a lot.

You’re a very insightful person @flybottle, I think those are just fears of dying. I’m affraid of being in tall buildings with open windows.

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Give it time, you’ll find ways to live a better life. It’s still very new to you this illness. To me too, that’s why I know. When it feels hopeless, everytime things turn around right immediatly after. Don’t give up.

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I just wanted to leave, and it seemed like the ideal way to stop someone with 2 faces playing an incredibly creepy game with me that I couldn’t win.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he was on this forum posting things to see what I’d say about him.
He’s done it before, going so far as to actually befriend me as a poster, and privately email each other…but I knew it was him and never let on that I did.
It takes more than super secret spook training to make this girl cry anymore.

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He follows you still?