If you used to be suicidal and now you aren't, what helped?

[AndresyFiorella]

Just that really. I don't want to go too much into my own situation, because that makes me feel worse, but I feel like I've had all the therapy and all the pills and I'm just so tired of it all.

I am bipolar. Been suicidal for most of my teenage /young adult years. About 26-28 I read a book and I remember seeing a quote. “Happiness is a hard choice to make”. It very much set off a tiny chain of events. Exercise is the big one. Every single day. I intentionally flipped my thinking and instead of taking every tiny pebble,stone/rock in my path as a direct insult to myself, I look for the silver lining. I try to turn every single negative into a positive. So my benefits got cut due to their mistake, I used it as a challenge to create mega cheap recipes. Instead of wallowing that I couldn’t afford to buy my kids more than 2-3 Christmas presents, I spent my last £5 on smart price baking ingredients and we made biscuits And cakes and cookies and they STILL talk about how that Xmas was great fun. Every single day I choose to look for simple beauty in the things around me, a weed growing in a paving crack, fluffy clouds, watching kids on the park. I took responsibility for my own actions and how my own inactivity/complacency caused a decent chunk of my problems. I held myself accountable and put steps in to improve my behaviour.

And volunteering gives me a huge buzz. Every Easter and Christmas my sister and I cook for those in need, we started this 100% on our own about 4-5 years ago and last Xmas Eve we supplied 87 people in the community with reheatable roast dinners that were scratch made. This year, we are running a sit down meal on Christmas day in our church. Plus take away meals on Xmas Eve, and hampers for those that want to cook their own. We fund raise for this all year and it doesn’t actually cost a lot. My husband and I play mother and Father Christmas as well all through December and we are brilliant at it. I have never had such a warm fluffy buzz in my life add I get from making other people smile.

Anti-depressants. And I also cbt-ed myself into a new mindset. I just don't allow thoughts to go to the negative at all.. I assume the best and look for the positive in everything.

mirtazapine

For me it was my therapist. My third therapist, to be exact. The one who was so genuinely compassionate and went out of his way to help me but was still willing to give me a good, hard kick up the arse when needed.

Dogs.

No medication at all except for a short course of sleeping tablets.

For me it was joining a gym & swimming. Exercise, exercise, exercise!

Reaching out to friends whose opinions I valued and going out every single day for short walk.

My therapist was rubbish, called me by the wrong name and kept changing the appointment time. I gave up in the end and became my own therapist.

I was selective but I did follow some internet psychotherapists and that was really helpful. Still is.

EMDR therapy. I felt like this due to ptsd and the EMDR massively improved the ptsd until i no longer felt suicidal.

I left the twat

My main problem is paralysing indecision. I can't enjoy anything because there is always a decision to be made. I just don't want to make another decision. I've had CBT and know I need to just power through and make the decisions. But right now I can't. I just want to die. I know it will harm DD but me being alive will harm her too. I know how miserable it is to have a depressed unstable mum. I'm just repeating the cycle.

Prozac & giving up work. Volunteering, gardening & walking.

Anti depressants - been on them a while and too scared to come off them. Also I found drinking alcohol made it worse so rarely drink now.

I read a good book called ‘The Happiness Trap’ which helped me to understand my thoughts.

Its a tough situation to be in so sending lots of love x

I've been equally depressed on and off pills, and in and out of therapy. Maybe this thread is making me worse as I just see all the things I've tried already! I do like open water swimming and exercise. I also enjoy parts of my job. I just don't want to make another decisions ever.

I come from a long line of depressed people and have suffered since puberty. I finally crashed when I hit perimenopause. I couldn’t work for a year & relied heavily on my wonderful husband to care for our 2 children.

This time I had therapy and long term antidepressants. I exercised and forced myself outdoors with the dog.

On the day when I felt worst, I almost did it. I scared myself so much that I gave myself a good talking to. I decided that I had chosen to live and that meant actually living, choosing to enjoy life. Count your blessings is such a trite statement but it has made a difference to me.

I still have down periods, but I haven’t ever gone back to that low. I stayed on antidepressants for 15 years, rather than a few months. The last couple of years, I’ve been able to come off them.

Decision making is awful. Being the grownup is awful. Not being here will be worse for the people around you and condemns them to a future of misery and guilt.

No matter how bad you feel, there is always light. You can find that glimpse of hope. Hang on tight and gradually it does get better.

Love @GreenGodiva ’s post. Life is hard when you experience a lot of suicidal thoughts but I decided to stay alive partly by noticing all the little things that I would no longer experience if I wasn’t here. Just birds, trees, clouds, the beauty around me. I built up from there. I’ve done loads of work on myself too but that mindset helps me every day and I always find things to be grateful for.

there is a good app called Stay Alive that I have found helpful too.

Indecision is a symptom of anxiety and you are almost certainly exhausted. Get all decision-making to a bare minimum. Try not to put so much effort into making decisions or thinking about them. I remember well how distressing and exhausting indecision can be. I highly recommend Claire Weekes’s books to you, especially the audiobooks. It’s really all about accepting how you feel, accepting the symptoms and floating through. Then you start to recuperate and gain strength. Of course drugs therapy etc play a part too and I agree that exercise is brilliant but just a walk round the block can be helpful when you are tired out.

I assure you, things can change. It’s about 12 years since I was last seriously suicidal. Yes I have difficult thoughts, no life isn’t easy, but I am still here and I’m glad I am. wishing you the best.

Could you go down the route of looking at your gut health, op? Neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine are produced by gut bacteria and if these are low or non existent, it could explain some of your symptoms. Bifidobacteria and lactobacillus are important good bacteria which can be depleted by stress, viruses, etc.
Also vitamins - have you had blood tests for iron, B12, folate etc?

Dealing with my issues face on was what helped me most.

I had an incredibly dysfunctional family but to me it was completely normal to the extent that I was a little bit smug about how great a childhood I’d had. That was an absolute delusion. There had been prolonged and significant abuse in my family and everyone in the family were avoidant.

I was in a state after I left uni I had daily suicidal thoughts. I did some therapy with a very poor therapist which was literally useless. I was still completely enmeshed with my more than a little bit narcissistic mother.

I married a pretty avoidant man and had lovely children and after my younger daughter reached the age where I had been abused I completely fell apart.

Facing up to my childhood issues and taking the step of moving on from my dysfunctional family was an instrumental first step in my recovery. I found an excellent therapist who was incredible.

Focusing on the relationships in my own life, there were a few women similar to my mother I had attracted through the years whom I had to lose.

My relationships were my Achilles heel, I had some really dysfunctional draining ones and letting go of them really helped to bring me some inner peace. Next came hobbies and interests that helped in my personal development and growth and sense of purpose and self esteem.

Through it all I had my husband who did significant therapy and work on himself due to his own troubled upbringing and children who adapted to some very adverse changes in their lives and became such positive figures in my life. I am extremely content in my life now. I feel very lucky.

Have you ever considered if you might be neurodivergent? The decision paralysis is a big flag for me. When i get burnt out, i can't face making another decision - not even what cereal to choose for breakfast.

My ptsd it turns out was from a traumatic event but also from undiagnosed adhd/autism. Getting a diagnosis and learning to accommodate myself has been life changing.

There was a thread on here where people who had lost a parent to suicide shared their experiences and how it, in every single case, it had a devastating impact on their lives. Reading that, plus a shit tonne of therapy (7 years and counting) and various cocktails of meds.

When did decision making become a problem for you? Finding the root cause, whether it's behaviour you copied from parents, a particular trigger or a creeping paralysis is always the best way. Have a look at my AMA – it might help.

@GreenGodiva wow, I’m genuinely so impressed with your life & the love you show to others 💐

Anti depressants and hypnosis brought me back from the edge.

Thank you everyone. I've had so much therapy I feel I could write a thesis on why I am the way I am, and also I've read a million self help books and done CBT which all tell me what I need to do to change. I am incapable of actually changing though. I've also been on every anti depressant imaginable. I do feel like a lost cause. I do find exercise helps to drag me up from the total abyss. I try to help others by being a teacher. But I suspect I'm harming the students as I'm taking the job of someone who'd be a better teacher. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences.

I've had a couple of sessions with you Eyesopenwideawake; I've changed my username.

You are not incapable of changing. You weren’t born unable to make decisions, you learnt it somewhere along the line.lAnything the mind can learn, it can unlearn.

Just seen your update. Big hugs, always free for a chat. X

I realised that I was participating in the mortgage/salary/career rat-race for no other reason than other people expected me to, and once I was comfortable acknowledging that none of that stuff motivates me or makes me happy in any way at all, I opted out.

I still get suicidal ideation, but I haven't been actively suicidal in over ten years. I recognise it for what it is now and just pretty much ignore it. Change of lifestyle and living my life for my own benefit is what it took for me. Drugs and talking therapy didn't make the blindest bit of difference.