Feeling suicidal and don't know what to do

[Garveymom]

Feeling suicidal and don’t know what to do. I have got myself into a terrible mess (I only realised after it was pointed out to me) and I only have myself to blame. I just can’t see any other way out. I have three wonderful young children and an amazing husband who I absolutely adore, supportive family and friends but I have let them all down. I don’t want to leave them but I also can’t live with this pain and guilt. I am on medication and am involved with mental health services but I just feel like they don’t understand when I talk to them. Please could someone tell me what is worse for my family - me being here but being a shadow of my former self (paranoid, full of guilt, fear and preoccupied) or is it better for them to be free of me? My husband could then find someone else who is happy and normal to help him bring up my children. I was a really good mother before all this and it breaks my heart for my children that it has come to this.

It's not better for them to be free of you. You're a mother, your children's mental health would be affected for the rest of their lives if they lost you.

Do you have a diagnosis, have you been offered any talking therapies? I know how hit and miss mental health services can be (more miss!), are you able to afford private therapy?

No, they won't be better off without you.

Suicide makes everybody around you wonder if they have done something to cause it or if they could have prevented it. However bad you feel now, it will pass.

If you think you have made a mistake then that's good, it means you can recognise that and work on it.

Can you talk to someone IRL, maybe even the Samaritans?

Call your MH team as well.

Thank you for replying. I am on a number of medications for anxiety and depression but to be honest nothing can take away or numb the guilt and pain I feel. I am also doing CBT but again I just feel like I am beyond help. I feel like I am coming to the end of my life and it has made me realise how the world works and how amazing my family and my life was before all this. I look at my children's faces and I am overwhelmed with love for them and I hate the thought of leaving them.

I made a mistake for which I am truly sorry and I deserve to be a prisoner in my own mind for it - but my family don't deserve to be part of the punishment. I just don't know what is best for them, having a messed up mum or no mum at all. What is more damaging? I just wish I could take it all back.

Sometimes I wish I could just move on, yes I made a mistake and I could look at it as though maybe this is my second chance at life - I know I don't want to be that person anymore but I just can't forgive myself at the moment.

I was where you are 6 months ago. I was very close to ending it on the basis that the children would have a better life without me. I now no longer think that and am glad I made the decision I did. It might help to talk about changing your medications or having additional therapy. I would really try and stick with it and work through things. If you are close call the Samaritan's to talk to someone.

You will move on, it will get easier.

Take your meds, talk to your team, take care of yourself

OP whatever mistake you have made, you are forgiven, please forgive yourself. You are being so harsh on yourself. We all make mistakes, some people make the biggest mistakes you can in life, they find a way to forgiveness.

Your children need you to stay for them. You are not coming to the end of your life, you have many decades left. Try to take every day as it comes op step by step. Go and hold your children, read to them, watch a film and let tomorrow take care of itself.

You will already know samaritans can help you with these feelings. 116123.

Op you came come through this, with your dc. You don't need to worry about what happened in the past, nor what the future holds just get through today and alert your MH team now for extra support.

Tell your CBT therapist how you are feeling. I did and mine was very quick to realise that I needed more help than CBT and got me referred urgently to a psychiatrist.

Thanks everyone. I spoke to a psychiatrist during the week (she upped my meds) but no one understands. They keep saying that it isn't my fault that I am going through this but I know it is. I just can't forgive myself for getting into this mess and I don't know what I was thinking. I know I am being very vague to you all but basically I went through a traumatic, unbelievable and unexplainable experience a few months ago which caused me to reflect on my life and made me realise that I have been making terrible mistakes. I feel like I can't move on, the pain and guilt is unbearable and everyday is a struggle. The only relief I get is when I go to sleep. I just want someone to tell me what to do. Or maybe I want someone to tell me I am forgiven and it is ok to move on and I should use this opportunity to try and be a better person. I just love my family so much and I just want to do what is best and fairer on them.

OP, I’m a retired doctor. Please believe me when I tell you that inappropriate guilt is one of the standard symptoms of depression.
Along with all the negative thoughts, the depression makes you feel that you are an awful person, beyond redemption, responsible for all the ills of the world, etc.
None of those feelings are true! They are all just the depression skewing your mindset. When you are well again, you will look back in amazement that you ever had such bizarre thoughts.
And even if it were true - even if you were a mass murderer, for example- if you were truly sorry, you would be forgiven by God without question.
OP, keep talking, keep going, and just give your increased medication time to work. As you know, it takes a while for antidepressants to be fully effective.
And there are other treatments that can help- ECT for example has an 83% success rate in severe depression unresponsive to medication.
I will put you in my prayers, and send my best wishes that you soon begin to feel your mood lift, and the inappropriate guilt to dissipate. God bless.

You are very newly traumatised and these are normal emotions in response to trauma.

Are you receiving trauma-focused CBT? With someone appropriately experienced and skilled in working with traumatised people?

Thank you Babdoc and user1027. I know that one of the hardest things to do is self forgiveness and I guess I am just struggling to do that - I know I messed up and I feel like I don't deserve to be here. The whole thing has just been really unbelievable - it has caused me to question why we are here and that there are definitely things beyond our understanding. I also regret that it took my traumatic experience to 'wake up' and people to point out my mistakes to me for me to realise the error of my ways. It worries me that I couldn't see it myself - where was my moral compass? Is it enough to know that now I have it back? Is there any point in going on when I feel that I can't redeem myself? Is the love for my children enough to get me through this? I feel like the only thing I had going for me was that I was a good mum and now I am failing in that duty because I am so eaten up by this torment.

My CBT focuses on mainly anxiety at the moment. I just want something to wipe my memory of the whole experience and don't think that is possible!

Put whatever it is that you feel guilty about out there to supportive friends, or a counsellor, or even here where noone actually knows you. It can be a huge relief to share what is making you feel guilty and the relief it can bring can be uplifting. Lots of people will have been in the same/similar situation. We are all here to help you.

I don't think anything can relieve my guilt. I just feel like I have got myself into a mess that I can't get out of and I have no idea now why I got myself into the mess in the first place. I feel like I am living in a nightmare

Hi OP
I had these feelings once upon a time . I still have these feelings . They are powerful and overwhelming. But that's the thing -feelings -lie.
I think you overwhelmingly need some talking therapy of some kind. You say no one understands but you need some help op. And the professionals are right , it us not your fault , you are just not ready to hear that right now as your depression is lying to you. Telling you you are worthless, unloved/able, unforgivable and inherently bad. None of these things are you. They are your depression telling you you are this way. You are not unlikable and your kids aren't better off without you. But perhaps you need to realise that mental illness is a real illness and these are the symptoms.

None of it is your fault. You are enough. You are a child of the world and deserve love and light x

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