How do you cope with that fact that, once you have children, suicide is no longer an option?

[Losingthethreadabit]

A long time ago, I used to think about suicide a lot. I used to plan it, dwell on it, fantasise about it.

Since I never made a serious attempt, I came to the conclusion that for me (not making any judgement about others) it was a safety valve, a piece of escapist thought that helped take the pressure off.

It's a bit like fantasising about winning the lottery -- a one-off solution to all the everyday concerns.

But you can't very effectively fantasise about winning the lottery if you don't buy a ticket. And you can't fantasise about suicide unless you really view it as a possibility. And it isn't a possibility when you think about the children left behind. Not at all. So no fantasy, no hope of getting out.

That is so claustrophobic. Does anyone else feel like this?

That should be DON'T deserve applause. Botched piece of text deleting.

I was going to namechange for this but i thought what the hell (seeing as how i have recently changed anyway and no one knows who i am with this name!)

I contemplate suicide still from time to time. Not the same as i did when i actually attempted it, more in a kind of what would happen if i cut my wrist so the bleeding never stopped/lay on teh tracks/jumped off this bridge way than me actually wanting to end my life. My children have saved me in more ways than i could imagine. I would not for one minute be here if i hadn't had them.

I have self harmed since having them but not in the same way - i now have a big tattoo and had my belly button re pierced and my ears done for example. I did that because i wanted to feel the pain to get the release but i wanted someone else to do it so i didn't have to worry about not being able to stop.

I am not making sense am i?

To answer your OP, suicide is not an option for me now because i am first and foremost a mother and that HAS to come first to me.

You are making sense whitenoise. And it is interesting. I always thought that tatoos etc must have something to do with self-harm.

I'm sorry you have felt so low. I'm a namechanger. I don't know who you were before whitenoise. But I wish you well. Hope yyou feel happier soon.

I have good days and bad days. Some worse than others, some better than others. More importantly though i know that i can laugh now. I know that i can enjoy things and i am allowed to.

Sorry you had to change for this x

Good. That is important. And, yes, no matter what has happened to you, you are allowed to enjoy yourself and be happy.

losing - I hear you. sometimes I feel really trapped becuase that 'fantasy' is denied to me now. I know that if it was carried out that I would cause untold pain to my DH and DCs, but I daily battle with the feeling that I would like to quite simply make this all stop and I cannot envisage this for another 3 months let alone 30 years. So, I feel I am harming them if I leave, but am torturing myself if I stay. But there is no choice and that in itself is enough to make anyone impotent.

I also have had periods of suicidal thoughts in the past (my plans were always utterly hopeless so I doubt there was much real danger there), and although I am having fewer problems lately I have certainly had this thought about the impossibility of suicide post-children and know what you mean about the claustrophobia following on from this realisation.

Agree with BurnsifiedEffect that suicidal thoughts are often as much about self-hatred and the compulsion to punish oneself as the desire to escape. My own experience was the overwhelming feeling was that I just was not fit to be alive - as though my whole existence was some sort of grotesque mistake of nature. Not so much that I would be better off dead (as this didn't seem to matter in any case), more that the world would be better if I were. With some distance I can (just about) see that this is not a rational way to think, and also know that it's not that uncommon.

When we find ourselves thinking in this way (or in the less acute but nonetheless debilitating "flat" phase where our actions seem to have so little value that it is almost impossible to rouse ourselves to daily tasks), I wonder if the root of it is often a message of "not good enough" somehow received very early on as children, and carried ever since. As (depressive) adults we always feel that our unhappiness is our own fault, and that in any case we don't deserve to be happy. But of course, if we looked with our adult eyes at the child who believed itself to be "not good enough" we would be filled with the urgent and genuine need to reassure them that they are good enough and it is not their fault. Perhaps the key thing is finding a way to unravel these early feelings of inadequacy in order to recognise that they could not have been your fault, so as to come to a point where, as whitenoise says, you can start to allow yourself to be happy.

Hello all
losingthethreadabit I'm sorry I have not answered your questions.
I am trying to!-keep typing then erasing. I feel like I don't want old feelings/new name put down on here.

I have posted a lot of extremely personal stuff on here in the past under a different name(all had to be deleted)
(does that make sense?)

On a really positive note....I have a great life and really am quite glad my past accompanies me everywhere. I'm not ashamed of having had those feelings in the past at all-infact I positively use them in my work.

hoss
great post!

Thanks everybody.

Pellmell, sorry to bring up the past too much, I entirely understand you wanting to keep your normal posting name separate from some old stuff, and I'm glad you are feeling more positive these days.

Hoss, yes, lovely post. You are right I think, but it's hard to feel the truth as well as know the truth, isn't it.

And all of oyu, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this difficult subject.

O yes, the feeling of can't live and can't die. Pre-Christmas I was consumed with the claustrophobia of not knowing how to carry on with the crushing depressin but also knowing I couldn't choose suicide because of those left behind.

I think you are very brave to write what you did on your OP.

I have been thorugh some black times and before i had kids i did just pack up and leave my family behind, it felt amazing to be free from my life for a while.

I have contemplated suicide but after living with my best freind and reviving him/preforming cpr and calling a number of ambulances for his suicide attempts i don't think i ever could do it after seeing the hurt it caused.

I used to wallow in thoughs of suicide and i used to harm myslef alot but since my boys have been born they have given me a new outlook on life and a reason to combat depression and a reason to start sorting out my life.

SOmeone on here said if thier kids ever went away they wouldn't live anymore, i have had the harsh task of coming to terms with the fact that ds1 probably wont be here with me one day as his life expectancy isn't that of a 'normal' person but i still fight the battle for him and ds2.