*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.

No, it’s not “normal” to feel this way,
I actually think it would be better to say it’s not “healthy” to feel this way

I’d try to seek help if you can - therapy or similar? I appreciate that you say you don’t intend to act on these feelings but the fact that this crosses your mind, especially so frequently, would suggest there are underlying issues that need to be resolved.

I've thought about it a lot over the years.
After losing my Dad and my friend in a short space of time I felt very low and isolated myself.
The only reason why I didn't let my ideation become more than that was the thought of hurting my Mum.

I just remember not wanting to wake up when I went to sleep.

I don't know how common this is but I imagine a lot of people don't discuss it.

Suicidal thoughts are very common. Suicide itself is common and the leading cause of death in men under 45 in the UK.

Depression is more common in women, Gareth. Male suicide rates are only higher because males are more violent than women, and hence pose a greater physical threat to themselves.

Incredibly simplistic and dismissive way to look at an extremely complex issue but knock yourself out..

You were the one who attempted to turn a hard-hitting and much needed discussion about suicidal thoughts to a what about the poor menz.

I haven’t read all of the comments so apologies for any repetition but I feel like there is quite a difference between having suicidal thoughts and having fleeting thoughts of ‘what if I jumped off the platform into thectrack’

You mention having depression, anxiety and eating disorders as a teen and that’s when these thoughts began? For me they would go hand in hand in your situation? I don’t think it is healthy to think you will eventually end your life rather than go the natural way so I would speak to a professional if you can. It sounds like you have a lot to live for but what if something triggers your previous illnesses, I would get on the front foot.

I often have passing thoughts of ‘what if I jumped in front of this car’ etc etc. However I don’t have any intention of doing it or want to end my life at all. I think these types of thoughts are less suicial and more you playing games with yourself.

Good luck with everything OP, it sounds like you have a great future ahead.

Quite often, but without intent - most days when I am working. Not at all when I was off work for two months, even though I was off due to the suicide of my husband. I don't feel confident that they would stop if I stopped working, though. I think that the strand of thought that produces that desperate need to escape your situation would just find something else to latch onto. The only time I had real intent was for the first few days on antidepressants years ago, but that passed and the ads were helpful after that. I havent taken them for years now.

Well I don’t think it’s abnormal because I think an awful lot of people do.
I used to think a lot about it as a teenager. I was very unhappy and also I just couldn’t see myself as an adult, I just assumed it would end before that. Of course, it didn’t and I’m now an age I didn’t think I’d be - I can quite imagine now being middle aged and old actually and it’s not something I think about ever now other than a brief period after I’d had my son when I wondered about walking into a busy road a few times - just as a fleeting dream, I wouldn’t say I had post natal depression and I wasn’t really unhappy I just had moments of feeling it was all too much.

Huge non-Mumsnetty hugs to all those on this thread going through awful times.

@MNHQ can you do that link to the mental health support resources that you do for threads on this subject? Thanks x

I’ve had thoughts like this since my teens.
They’ve been no where near as often in the last 5ish years - only one time sticks out to me clearly. I was sat in my car at a notoriously busy junction in my town, and remember clearly thinking “maybe I should just pull out of this junction into the traffic”. Unlike the other times I’ve had these thoughts, I went home, told my DH about it and got the help I clearly needed.

Should add - I’ve suffered with PTSD for a few years now, and a lot of episodes of these thought are directly linked to the events surrounding the PTSD.

I think about it a lot,and I've always struggled to see myself reaching old age, ever since childhood for some reason. For me, the suicidal thoughts feel like a sort of safety net - although i don't think i will act on them right now, i could if things got too bad ,iyswim.

I should add that i have depression and i don't at all think it is 'normal' to think like this.

I get dark thoughts but I dont think of them as suicidal thoughts because I don't feel like I instigate them, it's like they come from nowhere. They're not voices, they are definitely my thoughts and they can run away with themselves. Sometimes I can make them go away as quick as they come, sometimes I allow them, almost indulgently I suppose. The worst is when I don't want to think that way but they still won't stop.

I don't have a plan or even an idea of what I would actually do, probably because the real me doesn't want to end it, so because of that I'm not concerned but they have made me very anxious.

The ideations are always there, but I've found I've gotten better at pushing them aside as I've gotten older.

for everyone that needs them

I have never had them but I have suffered with an horrendous eating disorder for years. I recognise the intrusive thoughts and the desire to self harm.

It has absorbed my life and robbed me of opportunities. I wish someone/thing could fix my brain.

Yes, I do.

I think this is mostly to do with the fact that I'm in an unhappy marriage and feel unfulfilled and frustrated a lot of the time. My hormones can also wreak havoc on my emotional state.

In periods of extreme stress/anxiousness I just can't see a way through any of it.

I've thought about it a few times over the years. The last time was a couple of years ago when I was taking medication for nerve damage. Apparently people taking those tablets which get prescribed for a variety of reasons are more prone to suicide. I did attempt it a few times when I was around 10 years of age. I was visiting a family member who lived high up in flats and I tried to jump over the balcony but was stopped. I also took tablets around the same age and lay down in my bed to go to sleep hoping that I wouldn't wake up. I can't remember how many tablets I took but it obviously wasn't enough as I woke up feeling fine a while later. Memory fades but I'm guessing neither of my attempts could have been that serious, maybe more just a cry out for help from a screwed up kid. My life at the time wasn't great so I can see now as an adult why I would have wanted out. So glad I hung around though as my life now is pretty good and I would have lost out on so much.

I’m glad you started this thread because I felt really “abnormal” for having suicidal thoughts. I’ve had them all of my life but would have never acted on them because of my DCs. I got pregnant at 18 and rather than it “Ruining” my life, it actually saved me and gave me a reason to live. I’m nearly 50 now and had a plan that on my 60th I would have a big party, which people would think was to celebrate, but it would actually be my goodbye party and i’d commit suicide shortly after. I felt by that time my DCs would be 40 and could cope with it.

I’ve been on and off anti depressants all my life but ended up on a combo of two and that’s made a huge difference. I no longer plan to kill myself when i’m 60 so that’s major progress! I will still commit suicide if I become elderly and get diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (I should still have the power in the early stages to do so) or become incapacitated to a degree where I start needing care, but that will be because I don’t want to go into a care home.

I wouldn’t say the thoughts have gone away entirely. I smoke, and drink a little more than I should and I think a big part of me not stopping those things is not caring too much either way what happens. But the thoughts of being desperate to die have diminished.

I also have a nice life. I have no “reason” anymore to want to die (in the past I felt I did have reasons) but I don’t think it is related to how good or bad your life is. I think it can influence it to a degree but can’t change the fundamental feeling. I certainly find it so difficult to fathom why the elderly cling to life, especially when it is no longer “pleasant”. That’s not me being mean, I just genuinely struggle to understand it. But likewise I do realise that most people’s minds don’t probably work the way mine does and for those people suicide is probably unthinkable.

Sometimes I do, I would’ve happily jumped off a bridge this time last year, and sometimes have that feeling again, but I won’t as I remind myself that I have 5 kids who need their mum and if they were left with my husband, their lives would be very different.

Thank you for such honest and thought-provoking replies. to those of you who are distressed by suicidal thoughts, or are going through difficult circumstances and feel that suicide might be the way out. I don't want to say the wrong thing, but I hope with time and outside help (if appropriate) things can improve for every one of you.

I can remember vividly the utter desperation I felt in the lead-up to the one time I made a genuine attempt on my life - I felt completely and utterly backed into a corner by life. Whilst I'm coming to understand that the way I currently feel may need to be addressed at some point (I feel ok at the moment, but I don't feel like I'm a real person. I feel like I'm an alien who's faked an entire existence as a human. I can't explain that any better), it is so very different from that desperate time. do hope I never experience that again - it's just that it's always seemed a lot more likely to be my destiny than not.

Ahh, maybe I should have heeded my own trigger warning on this one .

And actually, thinking about it, I’ve always been one to hurt myself deliberately and quite often as a kid thought that when I learnt to drive, I would drive a car in to a bypass bridge. Maybe I’m more of a fruit loop than I thought....

Really common I feel it all the time. Tried once I still have the scar on my wrist. Felt like it since I was very little.

As a teenager, I just assumed I would have to kill myself at some point before I hit adulthood because I couldn't envision myself coping in the working world because of (undiagnosed at the time) autism and severe anxiety. It was never a stressful thought to me...just a realistic one. But I never had the guts, I just rolled on from year to year, and now I'm doing okay. I'm 29 now. I still can't imagine much ahead of me in the future, but I don't feel that I need to die anymore. But I do still struggle.

Not that frequent now, but, when I was married I had suicidal thoughts most days ( all day) for the 16 years I was with him and made several attempts.