Habitual suicidal thinking

[Always Changing]

I have a question regarding the above, simply put,
Can suicidal thinking\ideation be a habit? Is there such a thing as habitual suicidal thinking?

This question is not in anyway intended to hurt or slight anyone who is feeling suicidal, I am asking for myself and myself only. (selfish I know) I have\am living with this for years and it occurred to me that maybe (for me) it is just a habitual way of thinking.

I apologise in advance if I have not worded this correctly or if it causes anyone any offence.

 

[Daniel E.]

Certainly, death/suicide is the ultimate in experiential avoidance. So, yes, I think suicidal thinking can become habitual as a negative coping mechanism, contributing to the underlying problem (depression).

In any case, it still wouldn't be a matter of personal responsibility but of getting treatment. On a somewhat similar note:

People who frequently use coping strategies aimed at avoiding or suppressing negative emotions or thoughts, rather than solving problems by overt behavior change, have poorer clinical outcomes...

The positive message is that people's senseless wars are not their personal fault...Experiential avoidance is the dark side of human language and cognition.

The Trouble with Language (co-authored by Steven Hayes, known for ACT therapy)

 

[Retired]

Hello AC,

Can suicidal thinking\ideation be a habit? Is there such a thing as habitual suicidal thinking?

I don't know about it being a habit, but I have to wonder if you might be battling intrusive thoughts. I think everyone has peculiar or troubling thoughts from time to time, and of course they are just thoughts. As we all know, thoughts do not reflect or predict reality, but if we give too much importance to those thoughts, they may cause us difficulty.

You may find this Psychology Today article informative as it discusses intrusive thoughts and how some people react to them and how those reactions can be controlled.

Getting back to the suicidal thoughts themselves and the subject of suicide in your life, have you ever put together a suicide plan or ever acted on those thoughts?

Have you discussed these thoughts with a therapist or other health professional for ways to gain control over how they affect you?

 

[forgetmenot]

Habitual suicide thinking i think this is a good term for someone who is stuck in thinking that suicide could be a choose to get out of ones sadness or pain. It is a thought that stays because it is a thought that one does have some kind of control over themselves without others interfering. A choice that is made by us and us alone I don't know but it does stay with many this thought it is like an answer to having the peace we long for but an answer that can only bring sadness to others.

 

[Daniel E.]

Another reason therapy can help:

For the most part, the assumption in DBT is that ongoing suicide ideation is an outcome of low-quality lives; thus the treatment consists of focused attention to enhancing the quality of life.

Cognitive-behavioral treatment of ... - Google Books

And I have certainly experienced this, which may relate both to avoidance and intrusive thinking:

As one patient noted, her suicidal thoughts had become a "habit"; they entered her mind whenever she encountered adversity -- a "conditioned cognitive response," if you will. This patient learned to take such self-destructive thoughts with a grain of salt...viewing them as a stray mental event signifying that she felt stressed.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wv...uicidal ideation&pg=PT288#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[Banned]

Hi AC,

For me, suicidal thoughts were always my "default mode" - when I didn't know what else to think or feel, I thought about suicide. Pretty much all day every day, actually. A combination of meds and CBT has made those thoughts all but disappear. They had become obsessional to the point that I couldn't think of much else.

So...I would support your thoughts that maybe they are habitual. They certainly were for me.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Yes, it can sometimes emerge as a form of OCD, obsessive type, which in turn is sometimes associated with bipolar disorder and/or borderline personality disorder. In such cases, the thoughts are more habitual or obsessive without necessarily any actual suicidal intent. (That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be taken seriously, of course, since they may seem very real and genuine to the individual experiencing them and that individual may at some point act on the thoughts.)

 

[Always Changing]

Thank you all for your responses and links to other reading material., I will discuss the idea of it being a habit at my next therapy appointment.

Steve: To answer your question, Yes I had\have a plan (it is always there) and yes I did try to carry it out some years ago, since then I have been on and off medication.

Today I am in therapy trying to work on the underlying issues etc, and also on medication.

 

[Banned]

Thank you all for your responses and links to other reading material., I will discuss the idea of it being a habit at my next therapy appointment.

Steve: To answer your question, Yes I had\have a plan (it is always there) and yes I did try to carry it out some years ago, since then I have been on and off medication.

Today I am in therapy trying to work on the underlying issues etc, and also on medication.

I'm glad you're in therapy and working on the underlying issues, AC.

I had (have) a plan as well, but find with each passing day, I think about it less and less, especially as I build other skills to cope and grow. I haven't had any suicidal thoughts in a few weeks...I hope you can get there too. It's worth the journey!

 

[forgetmenot]

I hope your session with your therapist helps and that you are able to stay safe take care

 

[Daniel E.]

The Ultimate Psychotherapy

The Ultimate Psychotherapy
by Michael Neill

Over the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with Dr. Robert Holden, the UK’s preeminent happiness psychologist and a regular guest on the Oprah Winfrey show.

During the course of our conversations, which have covered everything from positive psychology to wine tasting and from the true meaning of enlightenment to the secrets of playing “happy golf”, he said one thing which has been sitting in my mind ever since.

“In many ways,” said Robert, just before driving a golf ball 240 yards down the center of the fairway, “the ultimate psychotherapy is simply to relax about things.”

While it was just a passing comment, the reason it has been humming along inside my mind ever since is that it so directly mirrors the experience I have with my own clients. The moment they relax about what it is going on in their heads or in their lives, things start to change for the better. Their mood lifts, they begin to enjoy themselves and their work and their friends and their partners more, and before long they begin having a stream of insights into whatever it was that was bothering them in the first place.

It’s almost as though the more weight and gravitas we bring to bear on something, the harder it is for us to hear our own wisdom in relation to it. The more lightness of touch we are willing to allow, the more easily and naturally that thing begins to shift, seemingly all by itself.

One of the most profound examples of that in my own life came when I was dealing with the suicidal thoughts that filled my head throughout my teens and on into my university years. I had fallen afoul of a bizarre paradox of university policy which insisted that as I had “confessed” to suicidal thoughts I had to have mandatory psychotherapy to stay enrolled in the school, but if I actually spoke about having suicidal thoughts during that therapy they were duty bound to report me to the powers that be and I would be automatically expelled.

This led to an awful lot of time talking about nothing and getting wound up tighter and tighter as we danced around what was going on without ever once going to the heart of the matter. I worked my way through the school’s team of psychotherapists one by one (in fairness, I wasn’t very nice to them) until one doctor actually did something bizarrely effective.

She told me that to her ears, I sounded absolutely fine, and that it was quite normal for people to think about suicide from time to time. She pointed out to me that there was a huge distinction between thinking about suicide and actually wanting to kill myself – and for the first time in nearly six years I began to relax about the whole thing.

Up until that point, everyone (including me) had been so frightened about the content of my thinking that none of us had noticed that the only problem I actually had in my life at that point was my thinking. A few days later, I had an insight which confirmed that distinction in an extremely visceral way, and as I wrote in You Can Have What You Want:

From that day forward, rather than continuing to treat the “suicide thought” as a problem to be solved, I recognized it for what it was: just a thought, no more significant than “chicken or beef”, “plaid or stripes”, or “I wonder what she’s wearing under that?” (Hey, I was 19!)
​

On reflection, I can see that I had benefited from the ultimate psychotherapy. I had been given permission to just relax about my problems instead of driving myself crazy trying to solve them. And as is so often the case, the moment I allowed myself to relax, my wisdom bubbled up to the surface and the problem dis-solved in the light of my own insight.

One of my favorite analogies for this phenomenon comes from the amazing Dr. George Pransky, whom Colin Wilson once described as “(a) modern psychologist who seems to me as important as William James, Abraham Maslow, and Howard Miller.”

He describes our wisdom as being like a flute that is constantly playing in the background of our lives. The reason we can’t hear it is that we tend to have a brass band playing full volume inside our heads. In order for us to hear and be guided by wisdom, we need only allow the brass band to quiet from time to time and we will hear the flute almost immediately.

And while relaxing into a quiet mind may seem like a difficult thing to do in the midst of a challenging time in your life, it becomes exponentially easier the moment you begin to see that the solution to our most difficult problems nearly always shows up the moment we stop looking for it. Worst case, you get to take a bit of time off from your problems and enjoy your life a bit more. Best case, you create the space for insight, laughter, and miracles.

Have fun, learn heaps, and enjoy your day!

Michael Neill has a weekly talk show on HayHouseRadio.com, and his newest book, Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone's Life, has recently been released.

 

[Been there Done that]

I have intrusive suicidal thoughts. I am happy and I would never act on these thoughts. I have these thoughts when I am not distracted. It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me b/c I get these thoughts a lot of time. Does anyone else have intrusive suicidal thoughts with no plans to act on them? I get really scared sometimes. The intrusive thoughts tell me that I am going to overdose and I have had many oppurtunities to do so but I don't want to. My therapist told me if I have the thoughts and would NEVER act on them or don't want to act on them then theyr'e OCD thoughts. I have OCD and have received alot of therapy for this. These thoughts scare me and I have had them for at least 7 years.

 

[lammers1980]

I suffer from habitual suicidal ideation. Tonight for example was a very bad day for me. When I get to feeling this way, thoughts of {graphic description deleted} almost seem so soothing. I am going through so much lately. I have no close friends, and in two days I have an appointment with a psych that will determine the future direction of my life, am broke and am living with my parents again (i'm 32). There are days when I feel like I am fooling myself by saying things will get better. What keeps me going is that I am a father of two and cannot put my kids through the pain of suicide. I've traumatized enough people in my life already. On days like this though suicidal thinking is like an escape fantasy. Also I tend to sleep a lot because sleeping is sort of like being dead. Waking up and facing another day is the real hard part.

 

[Been there Done that]

Yes, it can sometimes emerge as a form of OCD, obsessive type, which in turn is sometimes associated with bipolar disorder and/or borderline personality disorder. In such cases, the thoughts are more habitual or obsessive without necessarily any actual suicidal intent. (That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be taken seriously, of course, since they may seem very real and genuine to the individual experiencing them and that individual may at some point act on the thoughts.)

This helps a lot. I love my life. It's very stress free b/c I am on disability and live with my wonderful mom. I have no suicidal intent. I only have thoughts that scare me. I do have OCD.

 

[Banned]

I used to have them all day, every day, for years, and thought it was completely normal. When I say for years, I'm talking over 20 years. I found a slight increase in my medication and some concerted thought-changing efforts has completely wiped them out. I haven't had them for a year and a half so you don't have to live with them. There are definitely ways to overcome them.

 

[Been there Done that]

I used to have them all day, every day, for years, and thought it was completely normal. When I say for years, I'm talking over 20 years. I found a slight increase in my medication and some concerted thought-changing efforts has completely wiped them out. I haven't had them for a year and a half so you don't have to live with them. There are definitely ways to overcome them.

Thanks I am not having them so much obsessive suicidal thoughts nowadays.I challenge the thoughts when they try to scare me. The one obsessive thought that comes to me the most is the fear that I might overdose on pills. I proved the evidence that this will not happen by bringing in my bottle of water with me to the room where the pills are and nothing happens. I don't WANT to overdose. These are just obsessive thoughts or a fear that I fight alot. Thanks Turtle for your post. They help ease my OCD mind.

 

[Banned]

I'm glad you are challenging the thoughts and know that they are just thoughts. I'm not sure I would add fuel to the fire myself by bringing water into the room to tempt me, but hopefully you have some good support around this.

 

[Been there Done that]

I am not in any wise "tempting myself" I am proving to myself that I will not overdose by bringing water with me to PROVE to myself that I will not overdose on pills. This is what my therapist calls "creating evidence" that proves that I will in no wise overdose on pills. I am never tempted to act on my obsessive thoughts. The obsessive thoughts scare me. This is why I would not be tempted by swallowing pills.

 

[Banned]

Oh ok. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I'm glad you are challenging the thoughts and know that they are just thoughts. I'm not sure I would add fuel to the fire myself by bringing water into the room to tempt me, but hopefully you have some good support around this.

*cough* I'm pretty sure you can't use water to add fuel to a fire...