Finally have a name for the feelings I've struggled with for years (TW: Suicide)

[CristinaYangsBrain]

TW: SUICIDE
.
Please don't read if this may be damaging to your mental health.

Passive Suicidal Ideation.

I don't want to die, or at least I'm choosing not to die right now, but if I was to be hit by a car or drown in the bath it wouldn't be a terrible thing.

Here is a very well written article about this.

Quote:
"I wish there was a nicer way to say this, but I don’t always want to be alive. Right now, I don’t actively want to kill myself — I don’t have a plan, I don’t check the majority of the boxes on lists of warning signs of suicide, I have a life I enjoy and I’m curious about the future — but the fact remains, I don’t always feel strongly about being alive and sometimes, on particularly bad days, I truly want to die."

I've felt like this for as long as I can remember, even as a child. Trying to talk about all of these feelings just got me in to trouble. I never brought it up in therapy because I was afraid. Feels good to name these feelings now.

I thought maybe someone else out there might benefit from this too.

I'm so sad to read this as a professional in the field

Please please get some help
Have you told your gp how you feel? Are you on anti depressants? Nor enjoying life snd it's opportunities and feeling it'd be ok if you weren't here is typical symptom of a depressive state , where your brain is so overwhelmed and mot working as well as it could

Please talk to someone and don't put it off

Sending you huge hug because you are important, your life is worth more than you realise. Can you look up Samaritans on website for their number and talk to them??

Thank you, Sparticus, but I think you have maybe misunderstood me? I do enjoy my life very much and I am looking forward to the future. I am in therapy and I do take medication.
But not even a therapist seems to understand that I don't want to die "I'm just not always attached to being alive."
I just feel pleased there is an actual term for what I feel. Passive Suicidal Ideation. I feel validated. It's not that I'm attention seeking or faking it or that my feelings aren't real or my depression isn't serious enough or I'm just doing it to seem edgy.

It's not that I'm attention seeking or faking it or that my feelings aren't real or my depression isn't serious enough or I'm just doing it to seem edgy.

Who has said that to you?

I understand what you are saying OP. You can not always enjoy being alive and have thoughts about not being here anymore without it being something really serious. These are just thoughts, that pass through your head and don't in themselves have the power to harm you or even distress you that much.

I am also a mental health professional and it is common to a certain extent. Obvs if the thoughts become distressing or you actively choose to take you life it's another thing entirely!

It's very interesting the way our brains function.

You’re not the first, or the only one! It’s been studied/researched and named! It must be a great relief to have the information now. (And it’s very kind of you to share.)

Well done on continuing your appointments & medication.

I think I understand what you mean. I am happy on a day to day basis and don't think about suicide other than in an enquiring mind kind of way as to what would be the best way. However other than the sadness I would cause family and abandoning my dog, I have no strong feelings about being alive. If I thought I woukd just snuff out without a load of pain or suffering then I think I am OK with that.

I've felt like this for most of my life too. I get days, weeks, months of feeling suicidal.

Then most of the time with passive suicidal ideation. I feel ok but also feel it would be ok not to die. I definitely don't feel like dying is the worst thing that could happen as most people seem to. I think there loads worse things, like being paralysed, or having chronic incapacitating illness. I'm sure I would feel frightened if I was literally dying right now (evolution would kick in) but at the moment I don't feel scared or worried about it. With covid fir example. I'm not scared about dying. I am scared I could end up on my own on a ventilator for weeks. Or contract long covid. That's terrifying. Dying, no. You'll be gone so you won't know what happened to you. So it's fine. My life is hard for lots of reasons and dying would be a relief tbh. I won't know anything when I'm dead so why fear it.

I have had a few brief periods and moments when I haven't felt like that in my life but it's momentary.

Thanks for posting OP. Good to have a name for it.