To say that my life will end in suicide?

[Planits]

I’ve been depressed for as long as I can remember. Although I’ve had some difficulties in my life, I have no real reason that I can explain or justify my misery, it’s just there. I’ve been feeling for a long while now that my life will, eventually, end in suicide.

It sounds like you have treatment resistant depression op. There may be some further options for you. Do you have an NHS psychiatrist or could you ask to be referred for further treatment? Sometimes if you have depression it's hard to advocate for yourself so could you take your partner or a friend to push for new treatments to be explored?

i don’t want to encourage the OP (though it doesn’t sound as if she has any active plans) but surely it’s normal to at least sometimes dream of ending your life? Life is so difficult, stressful and full of pain that surely most people imagine how nice it would be to quietly cease to be? Shakespeare & Keats understood. ‘Half in love with easeful death’ ‘oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt’. Blessed release and peace. I can think loads of things that are worse than being dead. Obvs it would be selfish to do it if you have young children which puts a spoke in the wheel.

I’ve never heard of EMDR, I’ll look into it. The problem with mental health therapies is that there are massive waiting lists and even when I’ve been seen/treated, I always run the length of the course/plan/whatever and it comes to an end and nothing has changed. I can’t afford to go private.

I've had so much therapy my GP is stumped with how to help me next.

@BMW6 small things make me smile. Scents, flowers, weather changes. Little glimmers that I try desperately to hoard for other times.

I have often thought the same about my own life. I dont even know why.

I get you. I hear you, and I have been you. I've always struggled to regulate my emotions, which have taken a severe battering over the years, and I remember a full year, when every day I cried and wished I was dead. I was going through a painful divorce, left with two under twos, and my best friend died from cancer.
The fact I had two wonderful children didn't really register I was so depressed.
Now, many years later, I am more content than I've ever been in my life. W live alone, have had some fantastic nights and holidays with my kids since that miserable time, and I credit one drug; Sertraline. Not the answer to everything but I'd tried many SSRI's and SRNI's over the years and none were fantastic. Sertraline just calms me and keeps me from constantly crying. Please don't give up-I have devoted my life to my animals and helped with an animal charity for many years. I needed to help others. You are stronger than you think. ❤️

Yes ^ struggling to regulate and manage emotions is a big part of it.

Definitely struggle to regulate emotions. I am a very sensitive and emotional person, I have very big feelings and don’t always know how to deal with them, or even sometimes where they come from.

Thank you to those who acknowledge that this is not a crazy feeling, that is so helpful in itself.

So sorry to hear this OP. I’m glad you have spoken about this. I have had very fleeting moments, thankfully they pass. Sertraline helped me immensely and I find work, choir, cooking helpful, just trying to do things where I focus on something else. I am not my thoughts, that what I try to think. Take care of yourself 💐

OP I’m sorry you feel this way and truly hope it gets better for you. Your life matters, you matter.

What you describe just now about big emotions is something I’m familiar with. Now I need a hard hat for this one, but do you absorb peoples emotions around you?
Do you feel like you know what others feel and understand of empathis with them?

You might want to have a medication review that is focussed on your quality of life. You have been taking anti-depressants and other medications for 25yrs. It is very common for these medications to be focussed on stopping your lows- the actively suicidal type lows, but what they don’t tell you is that these same medications also stop the emotional highs- moments of joy, contentment, and so on.

So while you are safe, you are numbed and over a long time that leads to increasing dissatisfaction because you are feeling nothing. You may even dissociate and feel like you aren’t living your life but observing someone else’s life.

You could probably benefit from the medication being tweaked to reflect you’re not getting those drastic lows any more. Don’t feel like you have to accept feeling only blah for life, medication is individual so psychiatrists are used to tailoring medication to each patient anyway.

Yes definitely, I’m very empathic (empathetic?) which is made worse in my job which is very emotional. Also my DC are very sensitive and I feel their pain acutely, such as DD being left out at the school gate to walk in alone the other day.

@Planits

Yes, I feel like his too.

@ToBeDetermined I hadn’t considered medication to be numbing the highs. I want to stop taking them completely, but I know you shouldn’t just stop… but I also feel that I should probably just stop the false chemicals and commit to all the other shite techniques that are meant to help (healthy meals 3x a day, exercise 5x a week, nature walks, zero alcohol, etc)

This is the source of your issues OP. You’re an empath (I am too), so I totally identify with it.
For example I can’t watch the news, I find it too overwhelming.
Hard hat for this… you’re possibly physic too…. It not aware (please don’t flame me posters I’m legit about this)

Look into grounding your energy every single day on the grass outside in your bare feet. Look at other ways to ground yourself too.
try meditation too…
If you can find a spiritual healer and try as explain it to them how you feel and they might be able to work with you. There is a good chance your issues are from taking on everyone else’s trauma and not being aware and carrying it for years and years.

Woo as it sounds…. While I’ve never been suicidal (dad did this) I’ve struggled massively with carrying other peoples emotions like they were my own. I have hard to work hard to learn how to protect my energy. It’s been life changing for me to understand myself better. I hope this helps.

I think the 12 sessions cbt type therapy probably isn't the best for suicidal ideation.

Tbh you would probably really benefit from months if not years of good person centred relational therapy. It is expensive though.

@Planits I think I can relate to how you describe how you feel.

I have just accepted my brain has been wired differently to others.

I read a quote once about suicide which said once you have let it enter your mind it will forever be your forbidden friend. This resonated with me. Suicide and the thought of dying on my own terms is a comfort to me even though I am not suicidal. It is hard to describe. It is a viable option in my brain but I know it is not acceptable in society to think and feel like this.

I do believe in Euthanasia and hope this is available to me when I decide my time is up.

I have stopped trying to fix myself. I observe the world around me. I watch all the creatures and plants in it, which comforts me as their lives seem so simple and all about just being.

I'm sorry you feel like this. I really recommend that you read Johan Hari "Lost Connections" which looks into why so many people feel depressed and why so many conventional treatments don't work. It really helped me to understand depression and anxiety and the way that it can come from so many things. It's not a self help book and is genuinely really interesting.

Do you get PMS @Planits ? Do you notice you feel flatter or more hopeless at some times over others?

I ask because I felt like you for a very long time, and was diagnosed with PMDD.

It is worryingly common for women with PMDD to be mis diagnosed with various MH conditions rather than a hormonal condition that causes mood and personality issues.

You have to work at CBT for it to be effective. It's like physical exercise..If you don't do any, you're back to square one again within a few weeks.

Have you tried making any tweaks to your life? I.e. what do you do, if anything, to unwind for enjoyment? I recently took up pottery and I find that really helpful in resetting me each week. I go to a weekly class. The people are all so lovely.

Have you been diagnosed with anything other than depression/low mood? Such as bi polar etc. Is it worth asking for a psychiatric assessment? Are you going through any hormonal changes that can effect mood?

Your children will always need you, whatever their age. You will always be their mother and perhaps their children's grandmother. They will always need you.

I feel this way. It’s one reason I wish I didn’t have children. I’ve seen the affect on others who have lost a parent to suicide, I can’t do that to mine when they are young.
I’ve worked out when the soonest kindest time to do it would be to them. So that is currently my plan. I’m tired of existing, my future is bleak.

im sorry you feel this way too. I genuinely think some people just aren’t for this world.

@Canrelate2024 I enjoy being in nature and watching animals, it’s so peaceful to think of how simple their lives must be.

@Over40Overdating I don’t have regular periods as using the mirena coil but I have noticed do get extremely distressed in the few days before having a (very slight) bleed.

@Scentedjasmin I have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, ocd and personality disorder. Also recommended a referral for ND assessment but I didn’t accept at the time.

never had this daydream. When times have been hard I have just told myself I have to keep going until the good times come again.

It’s such a hard topic to discuss but I don’t agree that it’s inherently selfish particularly if you have kids. My friend took her own life and she was the most selfless mother I ever knew. Totally devoted. She was convinced they would be better off without her. Which was delusional and part of her illness.

@Planits you may have PMDD and be progesterone intolerant - the coil is obviously all progesterone and the increased distress before bleeding is a classic PMDD symptom. PMDD is exacerbated by progesterone.

I felt like you for years. So convinced I was born broken and unable to access any joy or happiness or contentment, only the weight and horror of the world, which would get worse and worse and be unbearable to the point of feeling like I could not go on, then my period would start and I’d feel more human again. Or as human as I was capable of feeling. Rinse and repeat.

PMDD is worth reading up on.

Many women have been given a MH diagnosis that was ‘treated’ with anti depressants and called treatment resistant when those didn’t work when what they had was a hormonal issue. There are many women who were told they were bipolar, or manic depressive back in the day, who found menopause cured them.

There is a significant cross over of women who are Autistic and/or have AdHD also having higher rates of PMDD.

Your GP is sadly unlikely to know about PMDD or be able to help bar giving you Prozac but there are lots of forums.

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-pmdd/about-pmdd/