Fear of suicide (trigger warning)

(I had no idea which forum this fit in, so I put it here. Please move it to another forum if it's more appropriate)

I have this irrational fear of others committing suicide. Whenever a family member goes out of sight at home, I start to worry if they're preparing to hang themselves upstairs. When my mother is late coming home after an errand, I worry if she got into an accident or crashed her car on purpose. When my math teacher was visibly feeling down in class one day, I tried to be extra nice to him, just in case he might kill himself that evening.

I have this irrational paranoia of others committing suicide around me. I am fairly certain this is not normal. I can't help it. How can I fix this?

Dear jamesmadison:

I had heavy duty fear that my mother would commit suicide, for many years, and I would worry terribly, pray to the starts, be so afraid, I developed Tourettes and OCD at five or six, but my fear was based on her actually threatening repeatedly to kill herself, crying and wailing....

Is your fear based on anything real, like mine was?

atina

My mother has been troubled for a while, and I believe she had a failed suicide attempt a few months ago. (But my sister and I stopped her)

I think the fear also stems from that I am an asshole and a jerk to my family members. And I also had planned to kill myself some time ago, but all in the realm of hypotheticals.

How can I fix it?

Dear jamesmadison:

I believed that I was a bad person, responsible for my mother's misery, the reason for her wanting to kill herself, so I believed I was dangerous- that lead to a lot of fear, fear of saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing, looking the wrong way- all the things that may trigger her, make her "react" to my evil-ness by terminating her life.

What worked for me was therapy with a competent, caring therapist and cutting contact with my mother.

I changed by belief, finally :I now believe I was not and am not evil and was not the cause of her suicide threats.

atina