An old post

With the news of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain dying by suicide, there has been a lot of talk about suicide in the media. I realized although I am very open about living with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, I haven’t really shared much about suicide. I haven’t shared much because I am afraid to scare those who are close to me but that fear and stigma keeps others from sharing about their thoughts of suicide and some of those people die by suicide and maybe some of them could have been helped if the stigma was lessened and it was easier to share. Although I have never attempted suicide, I have thought about suicide and dying since I was 13 years old. For me, most of the time the thoughts are not a wish to die but a deep desire to end or escape the pain I am experiencing. I never imagined that I would be still be having suicidal thoughts 30 years later; I always thought they would stop when I was an adult, after my first hospitalization, after I went on medication, after I went off medication, after I graduated college, after I was in my first serious relationship, after a friend died by suicide, after I became pregnant (where early on I had one of my worse episodes of suicidal idealization), after I gave birth to my son, and after I got past the postpartum period, but those thoughts still come. I heard many people say because both of the famous individuals had teenage daughters that they were “selfish” for dying by suicide but I know for me when I think of suicide and those I love I feel like I would be relieving my loved ones of the burden of me and my mental illness, that I am a drain on those who love me, and that Remy would be better off without his crazy and poor mother, of course I know that these thoughts are untrue and the thought that helps me through those thoughts recently is that what it would do to Remy if his mom died by suicide, I don’t ever want to hurt him in that way. I am lucky to have a good support system that includes an amazing therapist, who I truly trust to talk about anything including thoughts of suicide and who I can contact whenever I need to talk (including an early morning in March 2017 when I was at a breaking point) and a great psychiatrist, who really listens.

This post is not a cry for help, please don’t contact Facebook or anyone else, I am truly safe. I just want to share my experience in the hope it lessens the stigma of thoughts of suicide so that someone in the future is able to talk about suicide when they are in need of help.