Discussion My therapists reaction to reasonable suicide

[sifp]

I think my current therapist has the most compassionate attitude toward suicidal people.

She does try to talk me out of it and wants to prohibit me from being active in SaSu. She has never threatened to commit me and just asks me to check in with her everyday.

I asked her about the idea of rational suicide when your mind passes the threshold of fixable. She pushed back a bit but recognized how it could seem rational in that case. She also of course mentioned that mental health views suicidally and hopelessness as part of the illness and as treatable with extremely hard work and treatment.

But then here is where things got even more surprising and validating. I told her I was giving myself a year and if at the end I am still suffering profoundly with no end in sight, intend to CTB. I thought I'd get a lecture or a trip to the ward. She responded by saying that's totally reasonable but she won't accept the time frame. She said she needs time. That my situation is exceptionally difficult but she sees a very slow path out. Asked me for three years. Said she has other clients with the same plan but typically 5-10 years. I was shocked and applauded her reaction. Made me feel motivated to give recovery a try even though I'm 99% sure it's out of reach for me.

TBH I've felt pretty far gone for about a year with about 80% of my thinking each day devoted to planning and just feeling like I am uniquely mentally broken particularly because my mental illness and psych meds have reduced my intellect from a college professor to a spacey child. I think I'm gonna get all the chemicals I need for my ctb plan, ask someone close to me to hold it for a year or so, and give recovery everything I got even though it feels impossible being stuck in a perpetual panic laced dissociated terror void with minimal cognitive faculties to draw on.

But hey, maybe the phrase that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem is not entirely false, just woefully incomplete. Perhaps it's more like suicide is a permanent solution to a problem that is sometimes temporary and sometimes permanent.

 

[N@te]

crazy thing to tell your psychiatrist
Hope it works out though, maybe she can help you

 

[LastNite]

One in a krillion therapist

 

[hughmun9]

She sounds like a really sweet, intelligent and authentic person. I'm a bit jealous.

mental illness and psych meds have reduced my intellect from a college professor to a spacey child

This is a big reason for my suicidal thoughts as well. After my psychotic episode, the psych meds and the isolation have done something similar to my intellect.

The only thing keeping me going is the promise of some of my mental faculties returning. An uplifting thought sifp is that it's surprising how fragile cognitive performance can be even for individuals that do not have a mountain of trauma and psychosis and depression holding them back. I've heard that even simple grief of a loved one's passing can affect an otherwise normally functioning neurotypical person's cognitive function for 8 months up to a year and a half sometimes. And I mean, significantly affect it. And there's no complex trauma there, no dissociation arguably, no psych meds, literally just grief.

So if you've gone through a difficult event recently it's more than reasonable to feel like you've lost some of your cognitive functioning for the moment, but it doesn't have to be permanent.

 

[sifp]

Thank you hughmun. That's honestly really comforting. Ya I had a nervous breakdown from my three violent autistic kids and struggling to perform at work. Lost my job. Then my house. Then my money. Then involuntarily psych ward visits. Now living penniless with my parents. Plus history of childhood trauma, lifelong psyche meds… possibly considering ECT… feels insurmountable. The cognitive collapse also happened as a teenager and lasted into my 20s and I don't think I fully regained my cognition but had enough to function until last year when the above happened (37 now). For a year I've been dead set on ctb, tried hanging while on ketamine, psh, have ordered SN. Taking a high dose of Ativan eliminates the SI. But if there were hope for regaining some cognition, I would hold out, as excruciating as it is. Because the level of impairment right now is almost funny. Struggle to dress myself. Cannot make my own food. Cannot make a schedule. Cannot converse with humans. My mind is devoid of thoughts save for the occasional children's song. Memory of a goldfish. Have to record therapy because it would be as if it never happened. Glad to hear I'm not the only one. I love this place and I love you.