self injury vs suicidal (sensitive matter preceed with caution)

The "My sister's a cutter" thread got me to thinking about this topic. It is said that self-injurer's are not neccessarily suicidal. For the most part I believe that to be true. On the other hand there have been many times when I have been severely suicidal. My questions are:
1. How many of us have been suicidal?
and
2. How would our love ones know that we have gone beyond wanting just comfort?

I am going to think about this a little bit and post my answer to the 2nd question after I get home from work. We are in the process of moving our store to a new location. It is a crazy mess and sooooo exciting.
Carrie

<font color=blue>If you have two dollars, spend one on bread and the other on flowers. The bread will feed your body and the flowers will feed your soul."--Arabic Saying

Carrie,

Those are excellent questions, and I am very interested in everybody's responses.

I have been suicidal. I know there isn't necessarily a connection, and most of the time for me there isn't, but the first time I cut I believed it was a suicide attempt, and felt like such a wimp because all I managed were some little scratches. I was a self-injurer a long time before then, but my methods had less resemblance to anything potentially fatal - mostly biting, head-banging, and not eating. So, when I started using blades at first, it did represent feeling suicidal. Scratching was for me an automatic response to being more frustrated or mad than I could handle, and I eventually just found that using a blade was easier. Another time I was suicidal, and was planning on swallowing a whole bunch of pills, but instead I got worked up into a rage and scratched up my face and any other exposed skin I could get to. Once I had done that, I started feeling better and was ready to abandon the other plan. So that time, SI was a way to get over feeling suicidal. Still another time, I was hit suddenly by powerful suicidal urges - I wanted to cut veins and knew that I could - and I was so scared that I didn't SI for about 3 months.

I'm trying to look for patterns here, and these incidents are all so different. Typically, if I am suicidal, I get very quiet and do nothing to draw attention to myself. I'm pretty skilled at acting normal, except that I have no energy and just drag myself around. I guess that being quiet and lethargic but acting normal, and usually not cutting, would be the warning signs for me.

Wendy

<font color=orange>"If a light beckons to you, follow it. If it leads you into the quagmire, you'll probably find your way out of it again; but if you don't follow it, you'll be plagued for the rest of your life by the thought that perhaps it was your star." Friedrich Hebbet</font color=orange>

I agree with Rap - very interesting questions.

I SI, and I have been suicidal. The way I tell the difference is my intent.

For me, there is no answer for your 2nd questions, as my family doesn't know that I have big problems - that I see a shrink and on meds. I have absolutely no support for my mental illnesses - they think I can 'fix' myself and that if I'm depressed or something, it's all my fault. They also believe that I'm wasting the shrink's time and the government's money for seeing shrink.

However, I think that sometimes, the way our loved ones know that we have gone beyond wanting just comfort is to tell them - using words, either verbally or written. They don't read minds, and they don't know the 'signals'.

i been suicidal.. No one knows about it because if it came out i would be on the first cab out to the mental institution. In fact im still suicidal. I been off my meds for oh about 3 months and i just feel worthless and not even worth a glance at.... sorry i said too much...........

When I SI, I am usually suicidal, but what I do to SI would not kill me. I am usually so depressed and hurting that I want to die, but obviously scratches and shallow cuts couldn't kill me. I guess SI and suicidal thoughts are very linked for me.

I have been suicidal numerous times, been to the psych ward twice. My new pdoc asked me just today if there was a chance that I would do something, and I said "yes - not today, but I can't promise I won't".

The only one that has ever known that I was going to go further was my T. No one else had any clue.

My method was pills but I have always known that if I get into SI ing too much, sort of like a trance, it would lead to far worse. I scare myself then.


Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
Dorothy Bernard

I think the best way for people to know that I am suicidal is if I begin to use words like Never or Always frequently. "Things never work out for me." "You always spend all our money." That is when my BPD takes the driver's seat and when I feel most hopeless because when "Never" and "Always" come up I feel I have no power to change my circumstance. The world and everything in it has control over me and i am being forced down a road I can't stand being on and there is nothing I can do about it. Of course that is a feeling carried over from childhood.
Carrie

<font color=blue>If you have two dollars, spend one on bread and the other on flowers. The bread will feed your body and the flowers will feed your soul."--Arabic Saying

It appears that we all have had suicidal feelings. I know that SI isn't a suicide attempt, I feel that it has kept me from killing myself a few times BUT it seems there is a deffinate corrolation to SI and suicidal feelings. Of course that is obvious because if we didn't feel aweful we wouldn't SI and since we SI we have aweful feelings inside so it is only logical that we may become suicidal. So isn't in logical for families to be concerned about suicide when they see that we have harmed ourselves?
Carrie

PS I am thinking of another thread that discusses family and lack of support but I have to get ready for work now. Just know you are all very much on my mind now.
CK



<font color=blue>If you have two dollars, spend one on bread and the other on flowers. The bread will feed your body and the flowers will feed your soul."--Arabic Saying

For me, no there is not a connection between suicidal thoughts and si. Yes, I have been suicidal, but not very many times in my life. The first time, I was about 15 or so and just really struggling. I wasn't having any suicidal thoughts, just depressed, but a teacher said something really mean about me and I went off the edge. I was a MAJOR perfectionist and deathly afraid of disappointing anyone. So this was the nail in the coffin for me, I guess. There was no warning. I went to school relatively ok that morning. After school, the teacher said that about me and I went home and decided to kill myself right then. I was going to OD on pills, take everything in our cabinet. But luckily my little brother came home just as I was taking pills out of the medicine cabinet, so I couldn't do it. After that, the urge passed. Now, during this period of time, I was not much of an si-er. Occasionally I would bite my hand a little or pinch myself, but I had never cut or anything. And I didn't do any type of si that day.

When I started cutting, I was not suicidal. I thought I was going crazy, and I was depressed, anxious, and desperately lonely. I felt I had no one to turn to and I had some major traumatic things happening in my life. I actually remember thinking, I'm not going to fight anymore. I'm just going to give in and go nuts! lol. So I cut up my arms. I quickly became obsessed and did this a couple times a day for a period of about two weeks. Sometime in there, I started feeling a little suicidal but only mildly.

Since then, I have had VERY OCCASIONAL thoughts of suicide, but very fleeting Usually they happen when I'm driving somewhere that it would be really easy to make it look like an accident. But I don't have any fear that I would act on them. SI, however, I find it VERY hard to resist whenever I feel extremely depressed, angry, worthless, etc, etc, etc. I have si urges a LOT, but suicidal thoughts only rarely.

I definitely have a weakness for si, but not for suicidal impulses. So for me, no they are not connected.

As far as warning signs go, I don't think I tend to give any. Actually, I take that back. When I become isolative, and if I talk about being tired of fighting and wanting to give up, it's a good idea to at least "check in" with me and see if I am thinking about it.

-comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable-

I would think that family/friends should always be concerned when they know that we have harmed ourselves. To me, that feeling of anxiety, submersion, and giving up can always lead to further impulses.

When I SI I lose the ability to think coherently sometimes. I zone out and become fixated on punishing myself......which can lead to the other.

Why can't or won't people understand that punishment against oneself should always be a source of concern?


Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
Dorothy Bernard

This is just for myself. When I become self abusive in either cutting, hurting myself (aggresive behavior to myself)))), hurting myself with pills etc; It is usually a sign to me that I will take it further. I have been in the self injury mode and have attempted suicide shortly after. Its not everytime but thats a sign to me that I need help before I take it too far. Everyone is different. I had a friend that cut on a daily basis; not to commite suicide but to ease her emotional pain. She cut too deep and lost the use of her hand. I was in the hospital at the same time; she did it there. They had to take her into surgery immediately. It was a scarry thing and made me think twice. She was a wonderful person; just needed help. What had upset so many was she told the nursing staff that she was feeling "unsafe"; they told her to go to bed. Well, did not work that way. People are all on a different level. Its a shame that these kinds of things happen. Like I say, everyone is different; the part that worries me is sometimes when we dont want it to go too far; it happens and we cant take it back.
itsjustme