*Trigger warning - suicide* - to ask you, honestly, how common suicidal thoughts really are?

[thisisannc]

I'm currently planning my wedding to the most wonderful man - I truly feel some happiness every day that I found a partner as great for me as he is. Yet, I realised tonight that when I really think about my own future, I've always assumed I'd take my own life in the near future. It's always seemed like my 'destiny'. I feel terrible, obviously, because I'm planning a future I really do want, but don't in my heart believe I'll ever have.

I should be clear that I have absolutely no plans to hurt myself imminently - this is a feeling I've had since my early-teens, and I'm 31 now. Throughout my twenties I kept and regularly updated a note (in electronic form), ready for when the time came. I stopped doing this as it felt too self-indulgent.

I just wonder if I'm really that unusual in genuinely seeing no future for myself, despite having a great career, wonderful partner and family, etc.? It's such a triggering/upsetting subject that it would be entirely natural for friends/family to misunderstand and react as if the 'threat' is imminent, so is it the case that a great many people feel as I do but don't talk about it?

If it's at all relevant, I was treated for anorexia, bulimia, depression and anxiety for most of my mid-late teens, so I do understand I may very well not be normal.

I don’t suffer from mental health problems but for about a year after my ectopic pregnacy I felt like death would be a pleasant release from how I felt. I never intended to go through with it though.

I should add I think it was a kind of fantasy for me - if that makes sense?

I honestly never thought I would get married and gave children but I did both and got divorced. I would never leave my children so would never commit suicide

I’ve honestly never ever considered it.

Honestly, It’s never crossed my mind in my 43 years.

I've never been what I would consider suicidal, but I do sometimes find myself having thoughts in certain situations (e.g. On a train platform with a fast train coming/up somewhere high), along the lines of 'what if I jumped now?'. I never consider actually doing it, and I don't want to, but that thought that I could is there.

Hello,
I don’t feel like this in the slightest, but I know that my DH does and has done for years and years.
Tbh it’s something I find quite difficult to understand, purely because I don’t feel like this.
He’s assured me so many times that he wouldn’t ever do it now because of me and now the DCs, but it is still something he would have done a long time ago were it not for us.

It’s something neither of us discuss with people outside our relationship because they just wouldn’t get it. He has a good life, we have a good life, but he is very confident that if he didn’t have kids that it would screw up, all things being equal he’d rather not be here.

I’m not really sure what I think about it all to be honest. Most of the time I just keep on keeping on. Was difficult when I was pregnant though.

Much love xxx

I've had suicidal thoughts/feelings on and off for the last 10 years. Going through a difficult phase right now. I too struggle to imagine getting old. I always have it in reserve as something I can do if it all gets too much. For now, the thought of my teenage DD gets me through. Sorry you struggle with this too.

Diagnosed by a psychotherapist as having persistent suicidal thoughts 6 months ago. Still have them, my greatest wish is to go to sleep and not wake up.

I think it’s more normal than people care to admit, but I think most people would recognise that it’s something they would never actually do, more as a fleeting thought. Or maybe I’m wrong! It’s certainly been normal for me for most of my 38 years, and I’m actually relatively happy and contented. I just have moments of wondering about death and what if I suddenly wasn’t here, what if I jumped, what if I stepped out into the road, swerved the car etc. And then it passes almost as quickly as I’ve thought it.

I get those intrusive thoughts too. It's not like I want to do it but I'm afraid I will just do it on impulse. I feel this particularly strongly when up high, like on a third floor room or on a balcony.

Thanks for the replies

@Tumerictits2018, I'm sorry you had to deal with an ectopic pregnancy. I certainly do understand what you mean by it being a kind of fantasy. I'm pleased that it seems (from your wording) that you don't feel this way any more.

@GoldenEvilHoor, thank you for your reply. Perhaps you're right and it's not normal. It's not my first thought in the morning, but often my last at night.

Every hour of every day.

I'd happily end it tomorrow it's only my kids stop me

Hi OP.

I don't think that is usual. Would you want to change that feeling? Have you considered counselling? (Or perhaps had it before?)

Alicezander that is a recognised psychological process that is apparently quite common. I do it too. Oliver Burkeman wrote about it a few years ago in the Guardian. If I can find it, I'll post a link. It's apparently a way in which our brain reminds ourselves why we want to live.

I think about it sometimes, thisisannc, I believe there's even a term for it - 'ideation'?

It's not suicidal thoughts that run through my head as much as how I'd really like to disappear as if I'd never existed. Something like a Harry Potter 'Obliviate' spell... I'd take that option as nobody would be hurt or sad.

I understand that you can't talk to friends or family about this, they're just too close and really that would cloud their ability to listen to you dispassionately on the subject as it is upsetting. Do you have other people that you can have this sort of conversation with?

Sometimes just knowing that you're not alone, that there are other people who are either going through the same or similar, or who just understand, can reassure you.

I want to put the other side: I have never thought about it. I am mid forties.

My experience is that it is not common.

I feel for this suffering with this.

After my dd died I thought about suicide. I just wanted to be with her. I was 7mths pregnant with dd2 at the time.That was the only thing that stopped me. I never told anyone at the time how I felt. I can remember lying in my bed and hoping I didn't wake up.

I've had them, and at least two of my male friends over 40 have had them.
We've all had almost identical moments thinking about driving into a central reservation etc.

Hard to be certain of the reasons, but one was having a relationship breakdown and another having financial problems.

Also hard to put anything on a 'scale', but I would say all three got to an 8/10 scale of coming close to doing something stupid.

Not good.

I know how I would do it. It helps me to know that the option is there - somehow having it there at the back of my mind as a last resort helps me to NOT do it, IYSWIM.

That strange urge to fling yourself off a tall building is called High Place phenomena and isn't about wanting to commit suicide.

To answer your question though, I think about it yes. I have done for the last 2 years but especially so in the last 6 months. I'm just not quite there yet. It's so brutal and final and there's no changing your mind about it, so I'm just getting through my days at the moment. I'm pretty certain that no one else I know has the same thoughts right now.

I’ve had the desire the kill myself and also the impulses about jumping in front of trains or off balconies. They’re very different things, the latter is an unwanted, intrusive impulse and the former is an active desire to die because you don’t want to exist anymore. I’d say about 70% of the people I know have thought about suicide in their dark moments, but most people I know have suffered from depression so that’ll skew the answer. I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like to actually enjoy being alive every day and not think about how it might be better not to exist, that’s quite an alien concept to me to feel genuinely content and happy (yes I’ve tried the counselling and medication)

Suicidal ideation is far more common than people realise. I've had it right from my early teens, and probably earlier. The difficulty for mental health professionals is differentiating between that and someone being actively suicidal, both need support but one is (literally) a matter of life or death. It took me a long time to see the difference too. I get periods of both.

@Tumerictits2018, sending love, I've been there and the loss and the trauma are life changing.

I want to say I'm sorry to those of you who feel the way I do, but "sorry you feel this way too" doesn't seem right, as I wouldn't want anybody to say that to me. In many ways I'm living a much better life than I would ever have dared predict 15 years ago, and I don't know any different than the way I've pretty much always felt, anyway.

It seems unfathomable to me that some of you have genuinely never considered suicide.

@ParkheadParadise, I'm very sorry for the loss of your daughter. My mother lost my brother at full term, when I was a young teen - for many months she only wanted to be with him.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe, 'Obliviate' captures my desires very accurately - I completely understand that feeling! I haven't had any sort of therapy for a decade - since I was 'recovered' - I had CBT and DBT and do try to practice the techniques I learnt then. They do help, but I still don't feel like I really exist, in some way.