Strategies of Healing and Hope to Fight Suicidal Thoughts

 

 

September is National Suicide Prevention Month so I wanted to write an article about suicide. I sometimes have suicidal thoughts, but they’re just that—thoughts. I have never had a plan worked out in my brain of how I would take my own life.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t given my family and friends all kinds of grief and fear with my suicidal thoughts. One time when I was with my family in Door County, Wisconsin (yes, Door County, my happy place) I called up some friends and told them I was going to die by suicide. Also, I’ve been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for suicidal thoughts, and I’ve been in intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) twice. In an IOP, you’re in a group of people learning mental health skills.

I was actually in an IOP very recently and its ending was a contributing factor to a round of suicidal thoughts I was having a couple of weeks ago. However, the skills I learned in the IOP and other skills I brought to the program carried me through. Before I get ahead of myself, the biggest thing that helps me with suicidal thoughts is knowing that my first reaction to them is to be scared by them, and to know that I don’t really want to die. It took me 20 years to learn this.

The most helpful thing for suicidal thoughts that I did in the IOP was to draw up a Safety Plan. It’s a sheet that includes things I can do or people I can contact. One of the questions therapists in the IOP ask is if I want to go to sleep and never wake up. My alarm went off when I recently experienced this symptom. So I took action. Remember, I knew I didn’t want to die. I turned to my Safety Plan. I had written down that looking at a semicolon, a symbol of suicide prevention, or holding a piece of amber helped ground me in the fact that I know I don’t want to die. So I made a “medicine bag” that I carry with me. It includes an amber ring from my Great Aunt Elsie who passed away 10 years ago at the age of 97, and semicolon buttons (see picture above). My favorite is the one that says “Your Life Matters.” I also have a miniature rosary—a little Catholic voodoo can’t hurt!

The reason amber is significant is that I’ve read that amber is good for easing depression or suicidal thoughts. I don’t honestly think it does, but it’s a soothing idea. Also, it’s pretty. Pretty things help.

The medicine bag is just part of my strategy in working through suicidal thoughts and I carry it around with me. I also reach out to people and tell them I am struggling. But I didn’t tell anyone I was feeling suicidal until after the fact this time around. Again, reaching out to people keeps me grounded.

I don’t know what to say beyond that. I told my therapist how I’d been feeling at a recent visit and she told me I should contact her if I’m having suicidal thoughts. From now on, I will. I hope you call 9-8-8 or go to your nearest emergency room if you feel like hurting yourself or someone else. Or tell your therapist. Or tell someone. If I had told someone when I was in the thick of it, I probably would have felt better sooner.

I had suicidal thoughts very late last night. So this morning I texted my therapist and called my mom. I talked about it with my mom and my therapist and I talked about it in a therapy session today. So I’m starting to follow my own advice and the advice of others who care about me!

My Goodbye and Gratitude to 'Creative Schizophrenia'

 

The intensive outpatient program (IOP) I completed recently inspired me to keep a gratitude journal. Also very recently, the website HealthyPlace–where I blogged for 10 years–stopped commissioning bloggers. So I, like all the other bloggers, was let go. Many other bloggers wrote goodbye, thank you, and gratitude entries about their blogs. I didn’t get a chance to–my final article was already scheduled. So this article on my independent blog is both a goodbye to my Creative Schizophrenia blog on HealthyPlace, as well as a gratitude journal entry about it.

Creative Schizophrenia made me proud. I was proud to be writing professionally, and proud to be advocating for mental health. HealthyPlace did incredible things for my writing. I no longer only wrote when I was moved to but for deadlines, with editors depending on the content. I couldn’t wait until what my poet friend has called “the gods of inspiration” showed up. I had to write at least every other week. Writing was no longer a hobby. It was my job–and I felt responsible to my audience.

Other than taking my writing to the next level, HealthyPlace and Creative Schizophrenia established me as a mental health advocate. I was working with a great editor, Natasha Tracy, and I got to interview Michelle Hammer, founder and owner of Schizophrenic.NYC. And, of course, the blog also meant I helped others who shared the challenges of mental illness.  Favorite comments from readers said things like, “I thought I was the only one!”  “Your writing helped me realize what was happening to me!” I did sometimes get mean comments, such as from one person who called me “fatphobic” and “ableist.” She called me fatphobic because my article bemoaned my weight gain from my medication. I don’t know where she got “ableist” from. Also, it was very distressing when people contacted me through my personal space via Facebook, my personal email, or even my cell phone. It got to the point where I changed my name on Facebook. If I did respond at all (usually I blocked these kinds of overtures) I told people to leave a comment on the blog. That’s what the comments section is for, and I do respond to comments. This blog includes space for your comments as well.

Looking back on it, a lot of what I wrote about involved hearing voices. That used to happen a lot and the voices hit hard.  I used to hear really mean, angry voices. I would snuff them out at first by going on Facebook and listening to Scarlet’s Walk by singer/songwriter and pianist Tori Amos, but Facebook turned into a mean and angry place itself during the 2016 Presidential election, so I switched it up to watching Tori Amos: Live from the Artists’ Den or the Disney/Pixar movie Brave. It was so rewarding when people told me that after they read my work, they had a better handle on their own voices.

I never thought Creative Schizophrenia would go out of my life. It’s coming up on 10 years since I started writing for HealthyPlace. I’m going to do my best to continue writing articles about my mental illness here. It is hard work, but it’s worth it for me and, I hope, for you.