Posted by mair on August 7, 2004, at 22:32:47
In reply to Re: Night Falls Fast - understanding suicide, posted by holymama on August 7, 2004, at 15:40:34
I'm a big Kay Jamison fan also, although I only skimmed through the book on suicide. It made me feel pretty anxious just reading about it.
It's interesting what you say about suicide impulses. I've always felt that my own thoughts about suicide are impulsive, and that I can best protect myself by keeping myself out of situations where I could act on those impulses. I said something similar on this board once, and some guy responded by saying, as best as I can recall, that impulsive suicide was the purview of teenagers, and not adults. And, since I'm decades away from being a teenager, his comment seemed to be an only slightly veiled way of telling me how immature I must be.
Maybe because my suicidal impulses are, just that, impulses, I've never known how seriously to take them. But I do think it's helped me to talk to my therapist about them even when part of me is ashamed to be feeling as i do, and also somewhat ashamed to be talkiing about suicide even when I honestly believe I'm not really at risk. I think understanding it as an impulsive act has put me in a place where I don't freak myself out as much when I do get caught up in suicidal thinking, and hopefully it will help me if I ever find myself truly on the precipice. I hope then that I'm with it just enough to be able to tell myself that I'm not always going to feel that way.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:374944
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040805/msgs/375202.html