How does a client's suicide affect their T?

I don't think anyone is holding you responsible in that way; just that it's sad, it adds more sadness into the world.

" It was thought that cutting (the act of self-injuring, self-mutilation) was not at all related to suicide because the cutter acts to regulate his or her emotions, suicide not being the motivation. However, cutters, in their experience of pain, are de-sensitizing themselves to pain, thereby habituating to self-injury. So it is now found that there is a correlation between cutting and suicide and, in fact, seventy percent of cutters report suicide attempts. " - excerpt from article below

Suicide Risk Factors



ok now I'm done.

I meant like telling a therapist that I need help.

But you're right and I'm sorry. It is harmful to people outside of myself and I am responsible for triggering someone if seeing it upsets them. It is much different than being triggered by walking.

I think I've gotten myself locked into trying to justify this because I need to find a way to feel better about the fact that I still do this. I think I need to try and feel better about myself outside of the fact that I have a problem with SI.

Thanks for your insights. They've been really helpful and I'm sorry if I upset you.

The point is, you didn't see your abuse as a big deal while it was happening, but the long-term effects are obvious. SI is functioning similarly for you. You aren't able to see it as truly harmful right now, but the reality is that the damage to you physically and emotionally is adding up over time.

Time to learn healthy coping skills. Physically damaging your body is not a healthy way to deal with stress. You can learn differently.

I think you are correct and this is good insight. It's not a good thing, no matter how good it makes you feel. It's like a drug addict trying to justify their habit.
Don't worry about me, I'm a big girl and I can glad in the same pants I got mad in.

You're right. There really is no way physically harming myself can be good.

I almost feel like your anger actually added to the weight of your point lol. This is clearly an emotionally charged issue and it's naive/insensitive of me to assume that it isn't and that other people including total strangers wouldn't be affected by this. Maybe me saying the marks on my arms don't look like anything but just scars is also me being in denial. I've seen other people with self harm scars and I can recognize it right away as an SI scar without anyone even telling me. I'm hyper aware to noticing that stuff and the people who would be triggered by seeing it would be too.

Your suicide risks page was also right too. I wouldn't have done what I did if I hadn't desensitized myself to pain via self harm. There is no way I could have tried. I would have been too scared of the pain. Fearing pain wasn't a factor in that decision.

Why are you guys being so supportive? I don't really know what I did to deserve having so many people that don't even know me following me on this thread. I feel like I've just whined and been negative and resisted making any measures to actually improve my situation despite all of the great help and suggestions. I'm sorry I haven't been more receptive. Thank you for putting up with me. It does help me feel a tiny bit less alone.

That's how we roll....

I just don't particularly feel as if my behavior on this thread has done anything that warrants this amount of support. But maybe this just ties back into Bill3's post about my inability to accept praise

It's not about your behavior. It's about your fundamental value as a person, even if we wish your behavior were different. Some of us have been where you are, arguing against actions we know we have to take sometime, shooting down every measure that would actually improve our situations. Because we've been there, we keep throwing out those suggestions knowing that you're still thinking about them and absorbing information even while you're shooting us down. LOL.

Thank you for tolerating me.

It's just difficult to for me to understand why anyone would waste their time trying to help me when I haven't done anything to prove that I'm worth the effort. My T too. I don't get why she hasn't given up on me yet. She should have years ago and I never know how much longer it will be until she and you people will just just give up and leave.

..................... I'm literally quoting my mom. She uses those exact words all the time. "I should have given up on you." "You need to prove to me that I'm not an idiot for investing my time and money into you because I'm starting to feel stupid for believing you'll turn out to be a reasonable person".

... how do I get rid of her influence on me? I don't want to internalize her like this. It's ruining my life.

That's really perceptive to see that this is your mum's voice. I think noticing it a huge step to stopping internalising it, because once you see it as her opinion rather than a fact, it opens the way for you to consider other opinions, like that you are a sweet and brave person, worthy of love and support. You won't always feel like you believe them yet, but you're making progress.

I think perfectionism is working against you here too. You feel like you only deserve support if you accept all our suggestions and make suitable progress. So the support can become a kind of pressure, another thing that makes you feel bad about yourself. But we recognise that you are in a difficult position with a lot to deal with; we love to see you making progress, but you deserve kindness and support even if you don't do anything at all right now.

I go to a "peer support group" on a regular basis, and one of the people who had been attending off and on for just a couple of months committed suicide last month. It was a shocking experience to see how much it effected all of us in the group even though we didn't know him that well. We all were asking ourselves what we could have done, and what we missed that we didn't see it coming and do something to stop it.

I'm sure that with someone's therapist they would feel so much worse, and the feeling of guild would have to get to them.

That's part of what therapy is for. Learning to internalize a positive voice, or at least to effectively dismiss the negative voices that have been imposed upon you.

There are many of us in the world, growlithing, who believe that simply being a human being crawling around on this planet gives you fundamental worth. I imagine many therapists carry this belief, which informs their commitment to their patients. Be patient with yourself. You will, if you are committed, leave some of the ugliness of your childhood behind. You will get stronger, more positive, more comfortable with yourself. Freeing yourself from your parents, when you are ready, will go a long way toward healing yourself. In the meantime, know that love and goodness truly does abound in this harsh world--and it is yours for the taking, when you are ready to allow it.

You asked why you deserved support, what have you done to deserve support.

My own personal response follows.

Liking someone is not "deserved". When I like someone, it just happens naturally and feels natural. The person does not "earn" it or "deserve" it; it just happens. When it happens, it doesn't change just because, let's say, the person does SI or does not meet goals. Of course I want the person not to SI and I want the person to meet their goals, but I still like them, and want to support them, even if they do SI and even if they don't meet their goals.

But why?

Deserve is such a huge word for me. Thank you for bringing it up. In my dbt class we had to do sentence completion with it, and I was like, but I dont know what it MEANS - not in a positive sense. I deserve walls to come crashing down, or a date to be cancelled, but I didnt deservr a reward for working hard at something. And for sure I didnt deserve help just because I needed it. So that dbt exercise really pointed out a hole in my vocabulary and in the way I viewed myself. This is why we say chairperson, not chairman now!

Thank you all. It still doesn't really make sense in my head yet, but admittedly I'm probably not in the right mental space to really get it. I guess I will try to help people without considering whether or not they deserve it but for some reason I feel like I have to prove that I'm worth my while. Why is it so difficult to accept myself than anyone else? I wish it was just as easy.

I suspect we each have our reasons coming from our own experiences. We've all experienced being hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with who we are. And we've all struggled or are struggling to keep that awareness alive in our hearts and spirits that we matter and deserve kindness and respect simply for surviving and continuing to thrive. Why should you be the exception?

Personally, I feel a lot of respect for you. You're tackling demons I couldn't look at until I was @ 12 years older than you. And I was mostly out of my parents' house and had some financial stability. And I know how unimaginable it was to me to think I could ever be happy. I was raised to see myself as ugly, incompetent, and worthless. Yet also expected to excel, much as it sounds like your mother expects. But never supported, always criticized.

And I look at my life now, far from perfect, but generally happy. And I know that is ahead for you, even though you can't see it right now. I just want you to give yourself the time for your life to unfold because it will be so different from how it looks right now. You just need to help it happen by taking the risk to accept that just maybe the thoughts that were put into your head don't define you; that maybe you do deserve care for all of who you are right now.

I didn't really have the choice to wait 12 years more before dealing with them. When I was 18 years old, I just randomly stopped suppressing everything. I don't even really know what happened. I just started spontaneously remembering physical and emotional abuse that I experienced. Well, I didn't remember it because I never fully forgot about it. I just accepted that it was just normal punishment and criticism because my mom made it her mission to see to it that I knew it was my fault. She had me write her apology notes for being a bad kid after physically abusing me. But I got close to someone from a healthy family and it was very bizarre to me and I started re-evaluating my own family and little details kept resurfacing and all of these emotions came back. I don't know why I felt the need to say all of that. I guess I just got worried that people would think I was making it all up after I said I just randomly started remembering things. Sometimes I wish I never stopped suppressing it and I was still brainwashed by my mom that everything was okay. I wasn't happy but at least I wasn't having flashbacks and at least I never had to question if my mom loved me.

But for what it's worth, I still haven't self harmed yet. If only I could sleep. I have barely slept at all in over two weeks. I've gotten about 4 hours in the past 2 days and look at me now still unable to sleep. I'm sorry if I'm incoherent or rambling.

This makes perfect sense. It's amazing that you are doing so well.

Lack of sleep will make how you feel even worse. Any way to exercise/get active to wear yourself out?

I don't understand why I am able to talk about my life and feelings so easily right now on this website. I struggle to do it with my T at school. Maybe it's just because I'm hurting enough that I can't exactly just ignore how I'm feeling. And the fact that I'm basically anonymous.

I say things here all the time that never quite make it to therapy. Eventually most thoughts do. I like PC because it is a sounding board for thoughts and ideas before bringing them to T.

How's it going w/writing to T before seeing her in a month?

I'm trying really hard. I'm not doing well emotionally, but I'm trying to limit my SI because I know it would seriously escalate very quickly with my current emotional state and recent behavior if I just let myself do it whenever I want it. Plus I'm too lazy half the time to get my tools. Either way, it's actually almost been a week. I forgot about that. I started keeping a log so I could give it to my T in Sep if she wanted a clearer idea of what happened.

I've been exercising actually. We have equipment down here in the basement. I just can't stop hearing her voice and seeing that face she made at me every time I try to fall asleep. I'm scared of trying and I never took my ativan the way I was supposed to so I don't have enough to help me fall asleep tonight while still saving enough to stop myself from doing something stupid if I'm ever in serious danger again.