Thouhgts (no plans) of suicide and foreshortenned sense of future

I had my monhtly appointment with my psychiatrist today. It was mostly a good session, although it was a little rough. We talked about suicide, we always do, and I said I'm always suicidal and what I've realized is that I see suicide as an inevitable outcome. For as long as I can remember I've known I'll kill myself, it's a question of when not if. Please don't worry I have no immediate plans, and if I ever did plan to act on my plans I'd get to an ER fast. So it's kind of like an escape plan for me, so that I'll always have an out. Then we talked how I am still incapable of planning the future. I never expected to live past 30 and I'm now 42 - but I can't envision myself as being retired, or being old - If I look ahead, my time frame is at most 5 years and even that's pushing it. We discussed how all of this was normal with PTSD, and then he said something that I thought was kind of dumb. He said I had to remember that the trauma is in the past and this is the present and we have to deal with the present. To an extent I agree, but the PTSD is definitely interfering in my present by making me feel broken - like damaged goods - and the constant thoughts of suicide aren't exactly a lot of fun. I know I'm healing slowly and I'm loads better than I was 10 years ago, I just wish the healing process wasn't so darn slow.

splitimage

(((splitimage))) i know the feeling well, being a PTSD sufferer myself. i try to visualize a life without PTSD in my future. frankly, i don't see much else about my future. sometimes my thoughts do veer to suicide as an option to the suffering from PTSD. i want the PTSD to end so much. like you, i see a T. today the T asked me if the PTSD was subsiding. a little, i said. but, it's still there everyday and when i have a bad day, it's there in full force. T's try to heal us. and it is said that time heals. i do not know how long it will take to heal. that's the problem when time is the healer; there is no set time for it to happen. thoughts of suicide are just the wish to be healed; it's an odd form of disguised hope. when it comes to a PTSD cure, it seems that time is taking its time. it cannot come soon enough.

((((Splitimage)))))and (((((unhappyguy)))))

Yes, I know that too. Splitimage, I had the same kind of conversation with my therapist today. I also have that sense of a shortened life, I have lost my direction as well and I know all too well that deep darkness you speak of, even the wonder if there is going to come a time where I will be so blinded by the anger of dealing with this disorder that I too may give up. I also know the days that are very dark, it seems like I am fighting so very hard for reason, fighting myself.

I have spoken the words to my husband, I somehow wanted him to know I am trying but it is difficult and some days are very difficult. I am pretty disappointed because even though I have spoken of the struggle with SI. My husband still keeps a handgun loaded and plenty of bullets in the drawer of the night stand next to the bed. I queitly wonder, does he want me to? Or does he not believe me at all? I certainly would never put a hand gun next to the bed of someone who speaks of such grief and psychological struggle that they have bad thoughts would you?

I told my therapist about the gun today and how I felt about the different meanings it had for me about my husband. That gun has been there a long time, I had even asked my husband to take it away a long time ago, he never did, is that disrespectful? He says he loves me, does he?

My therapist told me that now he has to call my husband and talk to him, he also told me that he is going to ask to meet with my husband, that obviously my husband doesn't get it. Does anyone get it? Or are we alone except for each other in our understanding the difficulty of what it means to experience PTSD this way?

I feel like all I did was tell on my husband, it feels strange and deeply unsettling.
Why is it that I would have to have such a hard time speaking of such things?
Like long ago, hard to say.

I guess because I told my therapist it must mean that I do want to try, because now I know the out next to the bed will finally go away.

Open Eyes

I got goosebumps when I read this because I didn't remember having written it ... and yet it was me!

Ever since my attempted suicide at age eight failed, I've known that was mere rehearsal, that it wasn't my time yet. Ever since then I've known that death, when it finally came, would be by suicide.

And I didn't expect to live past 30. Certainly not old! & five more years ... Yep, that was the most I could ever imagine.

Thought I'd let you know, though, that while I still expect to end my life within the next five years, I'll be 66 in March. Plans adjust to life.

Hi Splitimage... I recognise a lot of this. I haven't always felt that my life was truncated, I used to have periods of intense depression when I imagined myself living on and on and on, past the point where I could bear it, chittering away to myself like a dessicated insect, with nobody there to care. In fact, a great fear I had as a child was that I'd grow to be old, ninety seven or so, and nobody would love me. Then I grew older, and came to fear that nobody loved me anyway, and I was already there.

I've tried to kill myself three times, seriously I mean, and I'm lucky it didn't work. First time, no bloody bugger even noticed. I was throwing up and hallucinating for at least a week, they all just thought I had the flu. (I was eighteen at the time.) Then I took an overdose of aspirin. Then... well, I don't remember how it ended up.

Anyway... yes, I'm forty, I can't imagine my life. It's like a brick wall that I'm rushing towards, with no breaks. I'll slam into it at some point. I really want my son to be grown up and married first, with someone else to love him and steer him right.

My mother was just a few years older than me when she died... I don't look forward to be older than she was. I can't imagine it in fact. My Mum used to always say she'd kill herself, we never believed her. Nowadays, after my failed attempts, I say I'll never try again... but I do wonder. I think of death a lot. Or it thinks of me.

You brought up a lot of things that I have felt, but haven't been able to put into words. I will be able to bring some of this stuff up with my T now. I never had intentions to act on my feelings but I also always saw suicide as an inevitable outcome... but I didn't realize that until now. Thanks for your post it was super helpful.

((Split Image and Everyone that relates))

I keep getting told that this is my "safe" place - the thought and plan of suicide is my safe place and I should find a new one- it is rather tough for me and yet to have succeeded in finding a new one totally.
I seriously don't think it will ever "go away fully" as some would like- but it is work in progress as everything is as everyone/human is.

I am partially shocked that the inability to plan out or to go through with those plans in life could attach to PTSD-- that is something for me to sit and chew on for a bit-- I don't know- I have potential but yet fail at using my potential as i know, and don't know

Big hugs to you all

"A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market." Charles Lamb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da7StUzVh3s

WOW!
You took the words right out of my mouth....that is how feel and have for a very long time as well.
Hugs if ok
jen

I get it. I completely get it.

I don't feel my age. I am completely unable to grasp the idea of planning or the future, because in my mind there is nothing beyond next month. Living day-to-day is hard enough, how can people pin their hopes on things that might be devastated by some random catastrophe? At work people talk about their career path and their 401k savings and I don't have long-term plans in any sense of the word. I'm too busy trying to help myself get through each day safely.

I struggle the same way you do.

I unfortunately get it too. I don't see further than a month or two up the road. I know I can't stand this struggle much longer. I never realised PTSD was one reason for this.
This is one topic I will not be discussing with T. I don't need his sporadic over reactions.

S is almost my companion. It is with me always and provides me with comfort. Since I have become a full time caretaker of the mother, my companion is trapped with no way out. Thus the thoughts and former plans have grown very quiet. This quiet is scary.
As for planning for the future: I do not have a clue. I exist...I try to prepare for the day when the mother will leave me but cannot. It is hard to plan for the future when you do not have a center.
Perhaps I am trying to prepare a little by going to a clay class. It is the only thing I do for myself. I have to fight with myself to go to the class, but then hate to come home at the end of the day. A little bit all over the place...not sure what to do about changing it.

hi splitimage, i want you to know that you aren't alone. i too have ptsd from different things that have happened in my life. mostly from being ill and being in the hospital with prognosis' that were focused on my health/lifespan/ect. so i always find myself thinking of death in one way or another...not that i really mean to or that i think of suicide alot, but when you are constantly bombarded by thoughts of death/the idea of dying, along with major depression, thoughts of suicide appear...not neccesarily of committing suicide, but of wanting a "death" of the depression and ptsd flashbacks, ect. i understand how tired you can feel after working and talking about your ptsd for so long and living with it for so long. thinking of you. sorry i dont have much advice, but i understand. know you aren't alone ♥

What helps me is knowing that it is a symptom. When I have the very dark days I keep telling myself that what I am feeling is a symptom of what I have and that the feeling will pass no matter how bad the feeling is. And what helped me a lot is when another member described his/her battle with the same strange darkness and that it is there but could be managed.

I try very hard to think about what it means as far as something the brain does in reaction to somehow struggling with the emotions/anxiety/fear/anger that flood it with confusion. I focus only on each day now and though I don't know what I want to do now, I try very hard to make a conscious decision to just focus on each day.

It is very easy to self blame for some reason when the pathway is broken in front of us. I think that often we come to know that we cannot control life, it just happens and often it is hard when things happen that hurt us deeply in someway.

While I know that thought is there, I do try to push through that and tell myself not to be so hard on myself and keep trying. Also, I do think about those that would be truely effected by my decision should I choose to give up. So I remind myself that it would be very selfish for me to not consider what I would leave behind in the minds of others.

All of us here are talking about something we struggle with that is very real to us. As much as we join together and talk about this very troubling deep emotion, because we do discuss it we bring light to it and we recognize we don't struggle with this alone. It is important that we discuss it and even share our ways of getting pass the days when it becomes very strong. Mgran when you speak of being able to let go if your son has someone to love him in his life you must realize that if you do make that choice you WILL present a life long psychological struggle in your son. It is important to know that what can happen is that a family member may feel that there may be a weakness in themselves that will take the same path. So being a good parent is something that you do all your life, every child watches a parent and learns no matter how old they become by the strengths of a parent.

If we can discuss this deep hidden emotion, it is the beginning of acknowledging it is real and efforts will be made to understand what it means better and how to help those of us that truely do struggle. Perhaps it is important to learn how to think about, not that at some point it will be a personal choice that is inevitable, but instead, learn that though it may be a choice, there is also an inner strength that knows that we can also overcome that and accept life instead. And if we do learn how to do this, we can help others do the same.

Open Eyes

Wow, OpenEyes, thank you for this new way of looking at these feelings. I think I've so often in the past been discouraged by the recurrence of these feelings that I get overhwhelmed by them. But I've found a lot of relief from other PTSD symptoms by thinking, "Ugh, THIS again--it's just part of what it means to have this illness, and I'll get through it." I never thought to use that approach with these feelings, too. THANK YOU.

Your welcome skeksi, it took me a lot to post in this forum, to really talk about this aspect of PTSD and that I DO experience it. It has taken me several months to even begin to truely understand PTSD and I come here to PC alot to read and learn and post. Outside PC, none of my family members truely understand how much I am struggling. I try to put myself in their shoes and in all honesty, if I didn't experience this PTSD first hand, I don't truely know if I would understand how challenging it really is. In my last session with my therapist I looked at him right in his eyes and told him, well, you read about it, study it, and try to treat it, but you never have personally felt it or experienced it, so in that alone you don't truely know the struggle. I told him that had I come in with a severly burned hand, somewhere in his life if he experienced the pain of being burned, he could imagine how severe my injury might feel. But what I am experiencing in my brain, he hasn't personally felt, so in reality he may not truely understand the depth of the pain that I feel with this disorder.

skeksi, but you, on the other hand know personally what I mean about this strange darkness that brings in SI. This thread is good because it allows some of us to discuss it and that it truely is a deep struggle. I wasn't sure wether to post my personal struggle with this here, but I know that because someone discussed it with me privately and it helped me be able to also talk about it in a way that I had not been able to before, really helped me somehow know I wasn't alone. We were able to discuss it in a way where we could say it to each other, in a knowing kind of way that we knew it was there, dangerous but somehow we could get through it, but it wasn't easy. And because of that discussion, it made me realize that yes, it is a symptom of PTSD and it isn't really discussed all that much openly. But it has to be included with all the other symptoms, these strange circle of emotions that are so very troubling, and can be very exhausting all by itself, PTSD. And just like all the other symptoms, as I mentioned here, it is obviously misunderstood, not truely understood and recognized by my husband, and I guess therapist, because my therapist has yet to talk to my husband, I know this because the gun is still in the night stand next to our bed. And I know skeksi, if you were in a position where you could take away that danger next to my bed, you would, because you know I have times where I seriously struggle.

I honestly have yet to meet anyone who suffers from PTSD like me that isn't a nice person, and one thing I know is that everyone I have met with this is EXTREMELY honest and sincere, and none of us WANT to have this, choose to struggle and are trying to simply gain attention for anything other than HELP and guidance and support. So, yes skeksi it is a symptom, just like wanting to isolate, feeling depressed, having extreme anxiety that brings on exhaustion, having trouble sleeping, not being sure of how we will react so we don't like to go out as much, we do look for some kind of rescue person in some way, we have days of clarity and can somehow entertain goals, then we can have days of feeling a sense of loss and instablility, and then days of some kind of disappointment we cant really identify properly, oh and that quick temper where we can get very angry and snippy because we get triggered somehow and yes, there is an anger that is present just beneath the surface. We don't like anything sudden, especially noises or a sudden distrubance like a door closing telling us someone is home and no, we didn't get much accomplished today, and what little we did accomplish, will probably go un-noticed.

But there have been members here that are gaining and maybe ahead and I have met them, they are very supportive, if only my therapist could have that same understanding.

All I know is that the brain is capable of healing in many ways. I am paying close attention to the flashbacks and memories and ALL the symptoms and how they come.
As I am doing that, I am working on consciously working through each symptom, trying NOT to allow myself to fall into the symptoms, but instead, work through them.
I feel it is very important to have a safe place to go to when I struggle, right now I don't truely have that, not the way I should, it should be a place where I will NOT be disturbed, I can have quiet and be allowed to take time out to rest and self sooth.

Well, another long post of mine, well, it is another effort to work on it, support others with postive thoughts, say yes me too, and this symtom is very difficult, but if we learn to hang on, it does pass.

Open Eyes

*with tears*

Thank you everyone with your honesty about this...thank you for your bravery and eloquence in discussing this so thoroughly...

((((everyone here))))

I used to have the exact same feelings but for a few years now symptoms have been minimal. I feel your pain. Just know that things can and do get better, but I will never tell you that it's easy. I still have my bad days, for the most part I have good days. I have been battling PTSD since I was 4. I am now 36. You will have to face the trauma head on and you may feel worse than when you started, but with the proper care and support it will get better. This will not be a quick process, but if you work hard with a T you trust it will get better. I used to cut 8-10 times a day (when I had flashbacks) and now I only feel that low once or twice a year. IT WILL GET BETTER!!!!!

These stories are very touching. I which I had more words of comfort, but do what you can while you can. Live one day at a time, and pray that one day things will get better, eventually. As a hotline worker, we try to deter people from thinking about suicide, but only you knows and feels the pain. I would encourage you to find a hobby that you enjoy and try to use that when you are experiencing down days.