Thoughts on suicide

One of the less pleasant aspects of my BP manifests itself in a fixation on the idea of killing myself. Unfortunately I experience these thoughts in both my depressed and manic states. I've included links to two sites I've found useful to try and shake myself from these thoughts. The first is the best; however it has some cheesy music, so you might want to turn the speakers down before you visit it:

http://www.bipolarworld.net/Suicide/suwallhome.htm
http://www.suicidememorialwall.com/

Most don't think of it, but BP is a disease which has a high mortality rate. Over 15% of us kill ourselves by direct action. This stat doesn't include those who die accidentally or through unhealthy lifestyles brought on by the illness (I self medicated with alcohol for a long time).

I have experienced suicidal thoughts in both depressive and manic states. Depressed suicidal thoughts (for me anyway) come on from a general sense of hopelessness. You are so tired and in so much pain, you just want to go to sleep and not wake up. Luckily, I've rarely had the energy while in this state to try anything.

Hypo manic suicidal thoughts, for me anyway, present a real danger. I am obsessive when I experience hypomania. I get stuck in recurrent thoughts which I describe as feed back loops. They always deal with past events that I want to change or wish had never happened (so far I've been unsuccessful in changing the past or wishing past events out of existence, but if I ever figure out how to I will let you know). The feedback loop description is appropriate because I am forced to relive the event over and over, and each time its more intense.

Further exacerbating my obsessions is the fact that I have an incredible memory. For past events and experiences, not for practical things (i.e. I remember what my wife was wearing the first time I kissed her over 13 years ago, but I have trouble finding my wallet and keys every morning).

I have the ability to literally relive an event inside my head. This is quite nice when done voluntarily (remembering really really good sex, a high point of achievement, or something funny that happened), but it's a living Hell when your brain picks what you get to relive and it is something horribly painful. It reminds me of he scene in A Clockwork Orange where the lead character is strapped in a chair with his eyelids held open and forced to watch all sorts of horrible events in order to reprogram his violent nature. Try as I might, my mind's eye can't look away; I'm forced to watch it again and again. Just typing this description has caused a feedback loop to start, however, I am getting better at short circuiting them and I think I can turn it off once I am done with this post.

Back to how hypo manic suicidal thoughts happen. They happen, for me, after I have relived an old painful memory 30,000 or 40,000 times and been awake for maybe 90 of the last 96 hours. I become desperate to stop the thoughts, I try anything to distract myself, video games, counting everything in my sight (our old coffee table was made up of 47 pieces of wood) and all sorts of unhealthier more intense activities. Finally, I get to the point where nothing works, and I just want to turn my mind off, to make it cease functioning for once and for all. Then the only answer is to literally stop the brain from functioning, to kill myself.

The last time I came close was 9 weeks ago. I had the noose (made from an old belt) hung and properly secured in the back bedroom and I was at the pc and had a page and a half of a suicide note written to my wife, asking her to forgive me and take care of our children and explain to them it wasn't their fault. Luckily, my wife sensed something was wrong, she came into the computer room (I quickly Alt + Tabbed) out of the Word document and back to ESPN.COM so she wouldn't see my plan. Well, she sat there next to me for a very long time; she wouldn't go to sleep until I'd taken my sleeping pill and went to sleep with her.

I was screwed up, but not so screwed up that I was willing to kill myself in front of my wife. She figured out what was happening and literally saved my life. Within a few days after this event I started Lamictal, it seems to be stabilizing my moods, although I had some rough times each time the dosage was moved up until I reached my present 200 mg level.

So what's the point of this post? I don't know. I hope it helps other BPs to figure out ways to fight the thoughts, and I hope it gives loved ones a insight to the whole thing and helps them know what to look for.

Comments

[Judy]

Hi,
Thanks for this information.
Yes, it is VERY helpful.
I, for one, am glad that you are able to share this type of information.
I lost my son last year.
I am trying to learn as much as I can about how my son felt and thought.
Reading this, is like reading my son.
So much of what you talk about is how he was.
Take care and thank you.