Understanding suicidal thoughts

Growing up how did you imagine your life would pan out? A successful career, falling in love, having a family, living happily ever after? Our dreams may vary from person to person but I don't believe there would be a single person who just read that question who wouldn't have envisaged, a life full of happiness. At no point would any of us visualised contending with such debilitating pain and suffering that it eventually would lead to considering suicide.

Suicidal thoughts are, having no hope that things will ever get better.

Suicidal thoughts are wanting to die but also desperately wanting to live.

Suicidal thoughts are not being able to drive your car without wanting to crash it.

Suicidal thoughts are thinking about ways to hurt yourself to somehow take the pain away.

Suicidal thoughts are fearing your own mind and what it can do.

Suicidal thoughts are not wanting to leave loved ones but not being able to cope another day. 

Suicidal thoughts are debilitating, terrifying and utterly heart-wrenching.

Experiencing suicidal thoughts has to be one of the worst feelings in the entire world, feeling torn between desperately wanting to feel happiness again and not seeing how it could ever be possible. Seeing no other way past the pain and feeling like you are trapped in a body that no matter what you do is determined to be depressed.

Suicidal thoughts are something I know very well and have been a big part of my life. In the early days of my illness, I dealt with them all day every day and these were the multiple times I attempted to take my own life. These were the most challenging years I've ever had, spent trying to talk myself out of suicide every day. Telling myself not to go through with it even when everything in my mind was telling me to, it's a battle that's completely exhausting and therefore at times didn't have the strength to fight. 

Further on in my illness and more recently, if I suffer the thoughts will come out of nowhere with no warning which made it especially difficult to explain to my loved ones how I could feel that way. Having to answer questions like do I not care about them enough to stay or how am I okay about leaving them behind? It will never make sense to a person not suffering but not once was it about them or anything other than being unable to manage another day. 

For, I will never forget the look on my loved one's faces when they would first find me after I'd made an attempt. Nor will I forget the feeling of watching their heartbreak right in front of you when you say don't want to be alive anymore. However, it soon became apparent to me that to keep myself alive and prevent any long-lasting pain I had to start sharing my feelings. I knew it was better to keep myself which became my lifeline and expressing my thoughts helped my partner save my life more times than I can count.

Something that isn't necessarily widely known is these dark thoughts don't just show themselves in the typical way everyone thinks, they can come and go but also be heard by someone other than you. There must be more awareness of this and learning that suicidal thoughts don't need to always be there to be believed.

The most common type of suicidal thoughts is those which present themselves every minute of the day. The person will always be thinking of ways they can end their life and at times researching possible ways. These thoughts are brought on by long periods of suffering, for example, battling depression, which leads them to feel there’s no other way out.

There are also suicidal thoughts that come and go; they aren’t constant but when they do arise it's very strong. It can feel like a panic attack with a sudden rush and all you can think about is not wanting to be alive. This tends to be the case when a family loses someone to suicide without any reason to show why and it's because these thoughts are impulsive. 

A final way of experiencing suicidal thoughts is when a person is extremely unwell and they begin to hear voices in their head. They believe someone’s in their head talking to them, following them or watching them. The feeling is incredibly real and they will have no control whatsoever over their mind.

Discussing suicide will always be so important to me and something of which I'm extremely passionate about helping others to grow a greater understanding. So many lives are lost because people either think it's an empty threat and don't believe the person will go through with it or they simply don't understand it. I pray if you take anything from this post it's that you don't ever disbelieve a person you appreciate how brave they've been to share and take that same bravery to get the help they desperately need.