Was reading a bit of your blog.......something that struck me was that you don't know where your sui thoughts come from when you were talking with your pdoc. I know exactly what you mean by that because I remember feeling the same way for almost 7 years (1994-1999). Looking back (remember hind sight is 20/20), I realize that stress was definitely a factor (I had just lost my engineering career after 15 years & it was my whole identity & I didn't realize at the time, but also my escape from my bad marriage). Anxiety attacks hit me for about a year before the sui thoughts & depression took over........then when any stressful thing hit a sui attempt was my reaction without even thinking about it......(I filed for a workman's comp case & the depositions & all kinds of things kept hitting me).....Looking back, I remember not knowing where my sui thoughts came from & realize that they actually became a habit.....a triggered response to the stress I was going through. I just wanted out of the life I was in & had no thought that the future could possibly get better. I had somehow very quickly programmed my brain to react with a sui attempt every time something really stressful came up in life because I didn't want to feel that horrible stressful feeling & thought that there was only one way out because there was NO ONE that could change the situation that was bothering me & no one could say anything that would make it better.

It took me several years to even recognize that I was thinking those thoughts before acting on them & at that point I was able to talk to my pdoc & get into the hospital before acting on my thoughts

I'm guessing with you....this time of year is difficult....maybe it's all the finals you have to go through & the stress that you really don't want to deal with....you mentioned a reading disability that makes the classes even more difficult & statistics & physics are definitely NOT easy classes. I was stressed through going to the university & getting my degree, but no mental health issue hit me until I lost my career 15 years later. You indicated that ADHD might be an issue with you also & your profile states depression which can either be from a physical chemical imbalance in the brain or situational depression like I experienced (depression caused by a bad situation in life), & anxiety....again.....can be a chemical thing or it can be caused from a situation & then the reaction becomes the learned way we react to stressful things. Anxiety can be good & bad....a certain level of anxiety helps us perform better....but too much can freeze us in our tracks & just mess everything up.

I can't even remember the number of times I was in the MH between 1994 & 2001. The second year after loosing my career, I had already spent a month in our local MH hospital.....then I spent Thanksgiving & Christmas in an eating disorders treatment center because of anorexia that started from taking Prozac & just seemed like the right thing at the time....no one realized how low my weight really got until it was dangerously low & my pdoc got me into the treatment center immediately & they put a person on me 24/7 for almost a week because I commented that I didn't want to live (1995).

I thought I had pretty much recovered in 2003 & I had definitely gotten rid of my sui attempts & even the thinking about it. Wish I knew the secret as to how it went away....but I really don't know....except with time I was able to reprogram the programming in my mind & it went away. I got brave enough & tried to take some interior design courses at a junior college with my husband (with husband was definitely the wrong thing to do). Unfortunately my mother had been dx'ed with cancer & after about a year of chemo & ratiation & the surgery that summer, that fall hit......& my mother's stupidity in handling her condition caused a bad home care person to get involved who abused her & I ended up involved in the trauma trying to figure out what was going on. Police got involved & it was a horrible traumatic situation I found myself in the middle of. I had just spent 3 weeks 24/7 with my mother in the hospital sleeping in the fold out chair next to her after I got her out of the house after the home care person OD'ed her on her morphine. My mother was so confused about everything that was going on with her & was in complete denial about her cancer since her oncologist said he had "gotten it all" in the surgery.....she just couldn't comprehend the fact that the cancer had spread & she was now dying from it. The trauma hit me so hard that I ended up so exhausted & sick. Anorexia took over again & I landed in the medical hospital over Christmas as I just couldn't get myself to go into the MH that my pdoc was trying to help me with. The medical hospital didn't have a MH ward, so my GP called in an outside psychologist & pdoc to handle the anorexia......they just couldn't get it through their head all the horrible things I had just gone through or about my mother dying of cancer. I was in & out of the hospital for several months at that point.....making arrangements for the hospice care at the nursing home I put my mother into & then she died just after I had to leave to go back in the hospital because of the anorexia & the anemia it was causing. I know that being in the hospital was where I needed to be. I was surrounded by all the support I needed at the time even though I almost missed my mother's funeral because of the anorexia & the pdoc was going to put a hold on me if I refused the central line & IV nutrition.

What all the last years of my life has left me is a very difficult time around Christmas.....it seems like everything bad that has happened in my life has been around this time of year. I no longer fight the sui feelings & hadn't for quite a few years before I finally left my husband in 2007 after my mother died. Life has really become wonderful & I thank God daily that he kept me alive through that horrible time of my life. I struggle with PTSD issues after going through the trauma with my mother & this year it hit even worse because I found out that a very special person in my life that I just met when I moved here a few years ago is also dying of cancer & it major triggered my PTSD issues this last month.

There are probably triggers from your past or some stress level that you reach that is causing you to feel the sui thoughts you are getting. Sounds like you need some help analyzing your thoughts & really grasping onto what your thoughts are. I know, I'm not real good at doing that, but with the DBT group that my psychologist got me involved in this year, I am getting much better at catching the thoughts when they happen & really being in touch with myself so much more than ever before in my life....& I'm 58......so that was a lot of years that I just let it all happen around me without any real awareness of how or why my surroundings really effected me the way they did.

Don't know if you can get involved with a T who works with DBT (Dialectical Behavorial Therapy).....know between that & all the Bible studies that I have gone to that have really opened my eyes tome, my world & all that is around me.

Your pdoc has to have a struggle if you don't know what triggers your sui feelings. They can't do much more than give you meds in hopes that some of the chemical imbalance in your brain will be helped & the thoughts will clear up because of that.....but if they are coming from other triggers that you don't even recognize.....then you definitely NEED TO WORK on coming to a better understanding of your thoughts. I know it's hard & I know for so many years my T just sat there & listened to me yap without any interface....no way was I going to be able to get in touch with feelings I denied even having but in reality were there.

I know I started to feel at times that the hospital was the only safe place for me. I started even feeling comfortable in the private MH that my pdoc had priviledges at. I definitely wouldn't recommend getting to the point of feeling comfortable.....but it's important to be willing to go into the hospital when you really NEED it.......& you need to know if you really need it because no one else can read your mind or know what's going on inside of you.....that is the one thing that only we have to be responsible for. Hope you stay safe over Christmas....take care & do what you have to do to take care of yourself.....your family would definitely rather have you in a safe place they to not have you at all in the future.

Think maybe a different T might be a great help.....the DBT teaches us skills to get through the times in our life when things need to be resolved but we aren't able to because we feel too distressed or our emotions have taken over our rational mind....until we can use our mindfulness (putting together our rational & emotional mind) to work through a resolution to the problems we are experiencing or we are able to radically accept what has happened & go on with out life until something else comes along we need to deal with.

Your priority is to stay safe....if nothing else can help you....then the hospital needs to be where you end up for Christmas. I only wish that I had known about DBT when I was struggling with all my sui attempts & thoughts.....it definitely would have made a huge difference in my life. Hope you can find what will make a huge difference in your life soon to help relieve you of the pain you are feeling.