During my over thirty years as a therapist I have had six people who have died while they were seeing me, only two of them can be questioned as deaths that were somewhat related to psychological reasons. Both were alcohol related and more accidental then intentional, but I don't think that either of the men who died would stay the were regretful.
I have seen many people about whom I wonder what it is that keeps them alive. But it apparent that life is precious and I believe, really does have a force of it's own. There is a drive to survive, and very few people will give up without a fight.
That is very different from having suicidal thoughts. These thoughts are common, but still very scary. They come from frustration, loss, loneliness and humiliation. They also come from chemical shifts in the brain.
I have seen a woman on and off for years who once realized, while she was standing in her kitchen, cooking for her unappreciative family, that she could just pick up one of those big knives and plunge it into her heart. This thought has plagued her for years. She gets anxious when she enters the kitchen, and sometimes when she is driving her car.
Each times she comes we talk about the pressures she feels, and how she can never please people, and them we spend half the time discussing the difference between thoughts and actions. She is really in very good control of her actions, but no one is really in good control of their thoughts. Thoughts come from everywhere and go everywhere. We have a process that lets us pay attention to some thoughts and not to others. No one seems quite sure what that process is, but it generally works.
But once you have thought about suicide, and the thought has sacred you, it becomes difficult to not think that you have had that thought. And if you don't think it, then you can't really pay attention to the fact that you are not thinking it, or else, of course, you will be thinking about it.
But don't worry, if the thought worries you it's an indication that you don't have anything to worry about.
2 comments:
"But don't worry, if the thought worries you it's an indication that you don't have anything to worry about."
boy, i've been chewing on this statement all day long. i don't know what i think. foremost, i'm trying to decide what feelings i have had, if any, when i have had those fleeting little insights, such as "i could just yank the wheel really hard right now and it would all be over." i thought everyone had those little fleeting thoughts at times.
i think....i think i felt empowered, in control. ew, yuck. kind of the same way that starving myself felt.
I have had infrequent thoughts about suicide over the years(during my depression times), but like you said, doesn't everybody? Does the fact that it doesn't bother me or worry me that I have have these thoughts mean I have something to worry about?
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