Category: suicide

Needs and wants

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, suicide, suicide attempt

Every body needs somebody some times… These lyrics from Keith Urban describe how I feel today. Everyone has needs that have not been met and because of that they feel out of sorts. It could be disconnected from the world, feeling left out from a group, or even feeling unloved by those that love them the most. There is summary of the needs that Edwin Shneidman says are the core of suicidal thinking. I know I wrote about this in a previous blog called a little of this and that. But today I think I will write the needs in detail and what they mean.

ABATEMENT The need to submit passively; to belittle oneself

ACHIEVEMENT To accomplish something difficult; to overcome

AFFILIATION To adhere to a friend or group; to affiliate

AGGRESSION To overcome opposition forcefully; fight, attack

AUTONOMY To be independent and free; to shake off restraint

COUNTERACTION To make up for loss by retrieving; get even

DEFENDANCE To vindicate the self against criticism or blame

DEFERENCE To admire and support, praise emulate a superior

DOMINANCE To control, influence, and direct others; dominate

EXHIBITION To excite, fascinate, amuse, entertain others

HARMAVOIDANCE To avoid pain, injury, illness, and death

INVIOLACY To protect the self and one’s psychological space

NURTURANCE To feed, help console, protect, nurture another

ORDER To achieve organization and order among things and ideas

PLAY To act for fun; to seek pleasure for its own sake

REJECTION To exclude, banish, jilt, or expel another person

SENTIENCE To seek sensuous, creature-comfort experience

SHAME-AVOIDANCE To avoid humiliation and embarrassment

SUCCORANCE To have one’s needs gratified; to be loved

UNDERSTANDING To know answers; to know the hows and whys

You be the judge of your own needs and how they play out in your suicidality. Then work on ways to improving them, if possible.

suicide attempt survivors

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, suicide, suicide attempt, suicide attempt survivor

Suicide attempters can be a challenge to clinicians. How to deal with this population that is at risk for attempting again? Research suggests that asking how they feel about their attempt might be useful. In a study in 2005 by Henriques et. Al, found that those that were glad to be alive or were ambivalent did not go on to kill themselves, where as those that felt they intended to die were 2.5 times likely greater to end their life later. This could explain why people attempt suicide once and never do it again and why some people continue to try.

I am a multi-suicide attempt survivor. And I think death is the answer to my problem yet I am still here. Now that could be because of my reasons to live vs. my reasons to die ratio is not high enough or because I suck at trying to kill myself. Another reason is that by chance I am not meant to die, that my time truly has not come but I digress. There were nights I hated myself for surviving my attempts and I still do. According to all the research, I should be dead. My therapist calls this exception to the rule. Maybe I am but I still try to plan my death.

I was not glad that I survived the attempt. I was not feeling ambivalent. But I think some people do have these and they go on living. Yes they have attempted but it also brought to them a realization that they were glad they survived. Something I have never experienced.

Reactions to how an attempter feels after can be an important clinical assessment. Something that might not be used across all clinicians. In this assessment it could perhaps lead to preventions because suicide attempters are more likely to try again. Maybe if we ask how they felt when they first survived, we might find a clue and prevent another attempt through clinical intervention.

© copyright 2013: Collerone, G

why should I live again?

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt, writing

Bus saga continues

Today I get on the bus and of course it’s the same lady with the 3 wheeled stoller that was talking shit about disability. This time she was the rude was one as she was blocking the damn isle with the fucking stroller. People couldn’t get by without doing cartwheels. How fucking rude. Then a man who is slightly mentally disabled comes on and spills his coffee on the passenger next to him who was helping him trying to open it. I see this guy on the same bus. I am just going to wait for the next bus. I can’t stand this idiot. He is rude and belligerent. Always calls the bus driver an asshole. But he is never the problem. Everyone else is.

Talked with my therapist today. She got my letters and my CAMS paper. She gets it so I guess I have not lost my knack of telling things in simple terms. But I still feel like I have. We also talked about my upcoming plan to kill myself. She was trying to get me to see that I have something to live for but I told her, I just don’t care anymore. If I don’t try this time I will feel like the biggest loser in world. I have to do this. I am determined to do this. Nothing can really change my mind. She wants me to see her. She feels that maybe if we have a session face to face it will bring some connection back. Now I got to plan this out as I just can’t take my sister’s car whenever I want it. I mean I could if she is working and not using it but sometimes she takes her husband’s new truck and I just don’t feel comfortable driving it. I have yet to drive this vehicle. I don’t know why. I want to drive an F150 and if I can’t drive a Jeep, why bother with the F150 truck?

I feel that I am getting in the blinders and constriction of my suicidal thinking mode. It’s starting to become everything I thinking of. But I can’t kill myself now. I have to wait. I don’t know what I am truly waiting for but I know that I just can’t do it now. I don’t have true will power to do it. But it is starting to be on my mind more frequently than I like. I often wonder what the questions would be if I called the suicide hotline. I know they would assess my risk and then tell me to call back later if I felt I was in greater danger. I can’t stand that.

I just read some thing by my twitter friend @unsuicide. She just posted something about hopekits and such. I have been thinking about making one but I think why bother. It might help in the interim but I don’t think it will help in the long term. My suicidality is just too great.

I have been thinking about writing the paper about April and suicide risk but I would have to dig into the statistics and such. I actually forgot what the numbers were. I knew them at one point. My brain has just turned to mush. All it can think about is other stuff about suicide prevention but yet I can’t take it. I feel like such a hypocrite. Here I am saying what to do when someone is suicidal yet here I am suicidal and I don’t do any of that stuff. It’s not that I don’t do it because it is bullshit. I just don’t think it applies to me. I have been there many times. I have had too many hospitalizations that were worthless and made me more frustrated than before I entered. The whole system is backwards. I can’t stand it. And because I don’t have a degree I can’t change it or try to. And it’s my fault I don’t have a degree. I can’t blame anyone else. If I was smarter and less prone to mental breakdowns I would have had my degree by now, or at least closer to it. But no. I get the fuck its and my life is now over. There is no stopping me unless I win the lottery or something major shifts in my life, like they find a cure for CRPS, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. I just tell my doc that the vicoden works for me but in reality it doesn’t really do much anymore. It takes some of the pain away but it comes back when it wears off. I had evidence of that last night. I took two vicoden with my night time meds and then got my second wind around midnight. By then, the pain meds wore off and I needed to take some more around two in the morning because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I can tolerate pain but when it becomes more than a 7 on a scale of 1-10, I have to take something before it gets out of control. Right now I am ok. But it’s day time. Pain won’t start until around 7 O’clock pm. And it is like this EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. So why should I live again?

this life would kill me…

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide, suicide attempt, writing

The Boston Bruins have won the semi finals to advance to the Eastern finals. In Overtime. It was a spectacular game. I didn’t watch one second of it. I just had to turn on Facebook and Twitter to learn of the hits and misses. It was awesome. I can’t watch hockey. To me, I rather watch golf. It is the most boring game to me.

My Sox were off tonight. A travel day to the Trop in Florida. They will be playing the Tampa Bay Rays tomorrow.

My friend who gives me ideas sometimes for writing thinks I should write about suicide in the spring and baseball season. I think I have already written about it. But I almost told her that this was my last year. I have given up and there is really nothing no one can do about it. I am just going through the motions of living just to fool everyone around me into thinking I am ok. I hate having these dual feelings, the ambivalence about living. I just know I can’t go on. If I could, I would try something now but it will just mess up my plans for later on this year. I just don’t feel the timing is right. Not that the timing is ever right. I just have it in my head about this certain date and I got to make sure that things are set before this date. I might try in a month or two to leave this world but I am not sure. The ambivalence is just killing me, literally. I want to die but I don’t want to live. Maybe if I survive this, that will be the name of my book.

I have been writing about the Aeschi model and the CAMS model for the AAS blog that I write for. I feel like I have the basics down pat but I am stuck on the specific details about it. But then it is not an exact science. People have died even though they have followed the Suicide Status Form to a T. I still feel like trying to prevent suicide is a tricky business. You can’t take away that person’s option. Once you do, it is treacherous territory. But working with a suicidal person is risky. You might get them out of the water this time, but not be so successful the next. It take a constant vigilance and effort to deal with a suicidal person. I don’t know how my therapist does it. I feel like if I kill myself I will let her down. She traps me into living and I hate her for it. But like the song by Thompson Square, If I didn’t have you, goes. “This life would kill me if I didn’t have you.”