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Suicidal obsessions and thoughts? Help!

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Suicidal obsessions and thoughts? Help!

Postby mocool » Sun Oct 08, 2017 10:44 pm

Alright people I am caught in the middle of a dilemma and I'm needing a little bit of advice because I'm banging my head against the wall :shock: . So I was diagnosed with OCD (shocker), but I don't have physical compulsions, they are all mental (trying to undo the thought, rationalize it away, checking my past) and I've had them in the past as harm OCD, luckily I was able to get over that with knowledge that it was just OCD and I actually didn't want to kill anyone. Hardly think about that anymore.
BUT NOW I'VE GOT THIS WHOLE NEW BRAND AND I'M SO SCARED
It first came with these thought after a minor stressor "is this all really life is? What is the point and purpose of life? What's so great about life anyway?" which then turned into "I'm existing, like I'm a body with a spirit and a brain that has thoughts", "what if I didn't exist?" and "if you're never going to get rid of this you should just go and die". This led to a series of suicidal obsessions which I could list but there are waaay too many. Now, I'm a religious girl and I've got my own set of beliefs about what life means to me, and why I'm existing but even though I combatted that thought with my religious doctrine the thought just kept resurfacing. So when I was trying to shut the suicidal and existing thoughts down with the typical "this is just OCD, everything's fine" I had a block that said "are you sure? like you said you just hate having these thoughts so much to the point that you just want to escape them all together so you actually want to die." When I visited the psychiatrist they told me it was depression, but I literally have nothing to be depressed about, I eat healthy, exercise regularly, and feel well rested, I'm not overly stressed about school or work (a few blips here and there but nothing shattering), I have a great relationship with my family, friends, no trauma, no history of self harm, I don't hate myself, I don't think my life is purposeless, and I have much I want to do and accomplish. BUT I WANT TO DO IT WITHOUT THESE OBSESSIONAL THOUGHTS, and every time I think of doing something in the future I think "well you're just going to experience these thoughts when you do that anyways". The prospect that these thoughts will never go away and that there's not really a way to get rid of them is what's making me feel hopeless and I just really don't enjoy life with them. I'm scared to do any sort of ERP because I fear it making the depression/hopelessness sort of worse.
This is driving me insane. Like there's the suicidal obsessions and the questions of existence, but then there's the thought of I really don't want to live with these thoughts the rest of my life that is causing a logical block of just dismissing it as OCD.
One more quick comment, I'm on 50mg Zoloft and 10mg Lexapro (I'm tapering off Lexapro and going up to 100mg Zoloft. Zoloft worked for my mom so hoping it will work for me!), but I'm also having an issue with this, like I will start to feel OK for a few days, then an existential or suicidal obsession will just pop up and I will ask myself "isn't thoughts of death the first thing to go on medication? Is the medication working if I'm having these thoughts?" and that turns into a tailspin of hopelessness. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it :D
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Re: Suicidal obsessions and thoughts? Help!

Postby InquisitivePursuer » Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:05 pm

[...]BUT I WANT TO DO IT WITHOUT THESE OBSESSIONAL THOUGHTS,


Can you tell me what you find most disturbing about these recurrent thoughts(?) that seem perfectly natural to occur; [existential thoughts] which a lot of people naturally experience some time(s) during their lives.

Oh, excuse me,
i just see you've actually already answered the above question in your original post:
The prospect that these thoughts will never go away and that there's not really a way to get rid of them is what's making me feel hopeless and I just really don't enjoy life with them.

but perhaps there's more to it?
Perhaps you could describe a little more what you find so disturbing about it all?

but then there's the thought of I really don't want to live with these thoughts the rest of my life that is causing a logical block of just dismissing it as OCD.


What makes you think you'd be set up with these thoughts all of your life?

"isn't thoughts of death the first thing to go on medication? Is the medication working if I'm having these thoughts?" and that turns into a tailspin of hopelessness.


What's wrong with thoughts of death, if they are just that?
We're all bound to die eventually, which causes many of us to have such existential fears that are perfectly normal.
The pivotal point hinges upon the attitude we take towards the thoughts that to me do not seem intrinsically evil yet unfortunately we're endorsed by cultural code to villify any of such thoughts that throw spanners in the wheels of a vehicle that needs to be put to a stop at times, if you wanna ensure you're actually travelling in the right direction with the right kinda gasoline in tank; verifying whether you're respecting the speed limit and all other factors that would fit into this analogy.
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Re: Suicidal obsessions and thoughts? Help!

Postby mocool » Mon Nov 06, 2017 3:47 am

Yes, OK so I see where a lot of this is coming from. I've been able to recognize my core fears and thoughts over the past few weeks and realizing many of my approaches have led to OCD digging deeper and deeper. I'm very afraid to let these thoughts go without doing any sort of explaining/reassuring/analyzing to make sure it's OCD and not a real suicidal thought because I'm afraid that if I let the suicidal thoughts go without explaining/reassuring/analyzing/fighting that I would actually WANT to have those thoughts. I want to know how to stop the thoughts either way, if it's a suicidal thought I can fight it, if it's an obsessional thought I can do ERP with it. But I get super frustrated when it keeps popping up and I start thinking "well this thought is still happening pretty frequently, does that mean it's a suicidal thought because the ERP isn't making it go away?" I'm getting scared because when I think it's a suicidal thought I start to fight it with my religious standpoint and it seems to scream back "what if you don't believe that??","Is this supposed to make you feel better?", "what if this isn't working now?". The scariest part (and I know it's classical OCD) is that I'm doubting that it's even just OCD. It would be so easy for me to just let stuff go if I knew that it was just OCD. I've been taught that when a thought comes to just say "it's OK this is just OCD" but my brain goes on a tailspin and says "but what if it's not OCD, how can you know?!?" and it generally ends with me saying "OK, yes this is just a thought even if it's OCD or not" but we all know how hard it can be to say "yes this is just a thought" when it comes on so powerfully. My core fear has to do with "what if I can't accept my thoughts as just thoughts and OCD and then I let them ruin my life and all I would want to do is commit suicide because nothing will work?". Ugh. Even just now my brain said "what if this isn't a fear anymore?" "what if you actually do want to die?"

When I look at this all objectively it does appear to be all OCD. I believe the first step towards recovering properly is recognizing these thoughts as just OCD, and that has been what my reassurance has focused on (checking to make sure I'm getting a fear response when these thoughts come, going over the thought and seeing if it has suicidal characteristics and responses, and reassuring by googling people who've actually had suicidal thoughts, what their thoughts were like and comparing them to mine). What I may believe will benefit me the most (though I'm terrified to do it!) is when a thought comes on, do some exposure and say "yes it is possible that the worst case scenario will happen" "yes it's possible that this isn't OCD" "yes it's possible that this isn't just a thought" "yeah it's possible that I don't believe this" "of course it's possible that this isn't working" "sure it's possible that nothing may never work" "yes it's possible that this is a suicidal thought". At the end of the day, thoughts are just thoughts and they only have as much power as we choose to give them, this is easier said than done of course and when we understand that we are not our thoughts that is when life changes, even now my brain just screamed "do you believe this?" "how can you know?". I'm slowly becoming ok with uncertainty though and that is one of the keys to getting better. :D
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