suicidal vs death wish

suicidal vs death wish
C

CFO Dave

Registrant
Does anyone else see a difference between being suicidal and having a death wish? We had a long discussion about my suicidal tendencys in my couples therapy today. Now I feel like I'm on suicide watch.

I've been suicidal on several occasions but was always able to find a reason not to do it. One or more persons/people who would be devistated if I were to kill myself.

What I've always had is a death wish. I'd rather be dead but I don't want to do it. No one seems to understand the difference.

When I hear stories of people dying of illness or accident my first thought is that I wish it were me. I once was in a major car accident with a jackknifed tractor trailer. I wasn't even scratched. What's up with that? People die in those types of accidents all the time.

Maybe I'm just to scared to do it to my self. I don't know.
 
CFO DAVE: I too have felt the two things but never at the same time. Looking back on my days as a hustler seeking out the more violent type of customer I know realize that I had a death wish. I wanted to be put out of my pain and life. And the closer the encounter came to that the greater the high it was for me.

Now attempting suicide is another thing altogether. I tried three times and each time it was a sort of spontaneous thing that just popped into my mind. The one time I thought I had been sucessful I never wanted to live more than I did right then.

Now I realize that if it did happen the GD perps would have the ultimate victory and I will not let that happen.

I want to live healthy until the day I die and am in no hurry to see that day come.
 
I get it Dave. I think. But I think somehow the two are related, at least in my case. For me, somehow suicide is like the ultimate punishment I can think of for myself. It's like one side of my personality just steps in and takes control and uses the idea of dying as a weapon.

I used to look to get into fights a lot. I just didn't care what happened to me. It was sort of an expression of my feeling bottled up. I was just so pissed at the world that I didn't care if I was killed. Obviously, I never was, but I did get kicked around pretty good a few times. That was an expression of a death wish, to me. I wasn't going to kill myself, but I was putting myself in a position to be killed. And at those moments, I felt an absolute sense of freedom. I was not complying with anyone's desires. It was an incredible high to know that you are operating without rules. That was the aggressive side of my personality taking charge and using a death wish to silence my more sensible side. That's pretty uncommon for me these days.

Being suicidal, on the other hand, comes about for me when I feel just completely powerless. The closest I came was when I could not manage to break out of a pattern of addiction. I was having repeated affairs and could not manage to stop. I just felt hopelessly up against the wall. So, I finally plotted it out in meticulous detail. I even figured out how I was going to do it and still get my life insurance to pay off. This was my sane side using death as the ultimate threat against my more aggressive/addictive side. I was just so disgusted with myself, I was sure that I was better off dead.

That second sort of suicidal feeling, where I'm actually planning it, has crept into my head only rarely, and I believe I have said goodbye to it forever.

But I look at any sort of death wish or suicidal thought now as a warning sign that I need to counter depression. When they crop up, it means that part of me is feeling very self-critical. Part of me is telling me that I'm not being true to myself. For example, I'll learn of someone who has died and I'll think, that should have been me. How unfair. That person had so much to offer, and they're gone. But here I am just taking up space and I'm still living. I've even thought at times that if I were presented the option, I would trade places with them. It would end my pain and give them a chance to go on with a productive life.

I now think that expression of a death wish is a warning system for me to take a time out and figure out exactly what's going on in my life that's making me feel that way and find a way to get back to what's important for me.

Take care of yourself.

Dan
 
Hi CFODave

Thanks for what you wrote and the replies.

For me it feels that my death wish comes more from feeling ashamed of who I am and wanting to vanish, disappear, sort of hide into death but being able to come back at some stage. I don't want to hurt myself or others, I just want out.

When I attempted suicide it was more out of rage and anger at others and myself. I really wanted to punish others.

I have never really thought about the difference between the two and this is my gut reaction to reading your post.

Take care
Heart
 
When I was suicidal it was directly after acting out, in the come-down from the adreniline rush mixed with the crushing guilt and shame.
The best attempt I ever had failed miserably, but I was so distressed that I couldn't even think straight enough to kill myself. And that failure actually shook me up enough to pull myself out of the state I was in.

I have also driven a Toyota Celica GT around a blind bend on the wrong side of the road at 120mph.
I remember it clearly, it's the sort of thing you DO remember!
It wasn't a suicide attempt, I could have driven into a tree and done that.
It wasn't planned in any way at all, I just approached this fast bend, accelerated, and cut the bend. A short way down the road I had to stop, I couldn't drive for shaking.
It's an experience I've never repeated either.
But to this day I don't know why I did it, I had driven that bend on the correct side of the road at those kinds of speeds many times before, but that day I just chanced it. Maybe it was a death wish?

I've spoken before about the adreniline rush of acting out and how addictive it can be, but this produced fear and terror directly afterwards without the rush, perhaps I expected the rush?

Dave
 
Hey Dave. Yup... I've experienced both. There is a definate difference, and everyone here has articulated it very well.

For me, my two suicide attempts were absolutely steeped in my desire to end it all. To end the pain. It was (and still is) seen as a very valid escape route for me. My ex-girlfriend was really big into horses and she tried to teach me to ride a few times. I fell off a couple of times in her presence. When I described it as falling off, she corrected me. "You didn't fall off, you kicked your feet out of the stirrups and bailed." This represents to me my suicidal nature. Rather than ride through a tough time, I would much rather kick my feet out of the stirrups and bail.

The death wish thing is totally different. It used to piss me off when counselors in high school would talk to us about how kids who drive too fast, drink too much, etc. "think it won't happen to them." It wasn't until this post, right now, that I realize why it pissed me off so much. IT IS BECAUSE WE HOPE IT WILL HAPPEN TO US! I've egged on fights, spun my car out on a bridge, everything.... and that is where the difference lies for me. Suicide is to escape the pain, and the death wish thing is because I have no value for my own life and want to die.

They are simply the two sides of the same coin.
 
I have never seriously thought of committing suicide. Recently my therapist got a little excited that I mentioned that I had come up with an idea of how I could kill myself and no one would expect a thing. For me that was just an intellectual game--I had and have no intention of leaving this world at my own hand--my body is taking care of that for me.

Certainly I have many, many time gone to bed or awoke in the morning disappointed that I had not died. But the reality is that I do not want to die. But I do want to be rid of severe pain. I do want to feel better about myself. I do want to accept that I cannot be a teenager and do it all differently this time.

I guess I do not really have a death wish. But it is still a fact that I am ready to move on because I am very certain that that will be a good move!

Bob
 
For example, I'll learn of someone who has died and I'll think, that should have been me. How unfair. That person had so much to offer, and they're gone. But here I am just taking up space and I'm still living. I've even thought at times that if I were presented the option, I would trade places with them. It would end my pain and give them a chance to go on with a productive life.
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the death wish thing is because I have no value for my own life and want to die.
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For me it feels that my death wish comes more from feeling ashamed of who I am and wanting to vanish, disappear, sort of hide into death but being able to come back at some stage. I don't want to hurt myself or others, I just want out.
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The one time I thought I had been sucessful I never wanted to live more than I did right then.
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I love this discussion board. Thanks so much guys. This is exactly how I have felt for so long. It really helps to know I'm not alone. It's also very sad to know that so many of us have been trained to feel this way.

I think it was Ken who mentioned in another thread "any learned behavior can be unlearned" I guess it's going to take time but I hope I can unlearn the feeling that my life has no value.

Dave
 
Dave we all have value. Got a suugestion for you.

Write down all your accomplishments and how you relate to others in need. Then write down things that you like about yourself putting yourself in anothers shoes. Then write down all that you dont like about yourself personally. Then contrast it with what you perceive others would not like.

Leave out the SA and any coping shit that has been dangerous for you.

I know that you will find a lot more good about you and worth and a lot less to like
 
I haven't read all of the posts here, but I do know that many people might consider my "life is short, live it up" attitude, and possible adrenaline addiction, as a death wish. To me, that would not be true. I do not want to die, but I am not going to live in fear of doing things. I've done a lot of things. When I tell "stories", only the people who know me, have been with me, or have seen me doing stuff believe them. I haven't jumped out of a plane yet, but I will when I start to get bored enough to do it. lol.
 
Dave,

I know exactly what you're talking about. I too had a "death wish" and some half-assed attempts at suicide. I wanted to die pretty badly there for awhile but I just couldn't bring myslef to do it (once I drank 3 bottles of cheap red wine, took a box of over the counter sleeping pills and made a couple of embarrassing nicks in my wrists with a straight razor which all amounted to alcohol poisoning, pissing myself in bed and stains in my carpet that I couldn't get out but obviously no death). And like you I would wish that I could die in a car accident or a plane crash or something equally dramatic and quick. I realized that I wasn't just looking for death, I was looking for a blameless death, one that wouldn't look like I couldn't handle life (which was the main reason why I wanted to die in the first place, of course) but was just a victim.

I also realized that the reason my attempts at suicide were so half-assed was not so much that I didn't have the "courage" to do it or the will to do it but because there was a part of me that actually didn't want to do it. There was a part of me that didn't want to die. That it would just be easier to be dead that to face all that I had to face.

All through my 20's I put myself in some very dangerous situations (gun up against my head in a crack house, driving drunk more times than I can remember, hustling in the seediest parts of town) and when I would get home still alive, I would remember that thought that "a part of me didn't want to die" until finally it got to be more than just a thought it became a desire not to die and a fact that I didn't want to die (unfortunately it came just before I was diagnosed with HIV but it did finally come and now I make sure to take my meds and monitor my health and not give in).

You just have to find that branch that is hanging down far enough for you to grab hold of to keep yourself from going completely under the quicksand. You just have to cling on to it until you're ready to pull yourself out. Just think about the fact that you haven't been able to commit suicide. Think about why that is. I would think it's because deep down you don't really want to die. Cling on to that.

Jeff
 
CFO Dave & Bros:

If I had only read this thread earlier today, instead of posting ("Need to vent..."), I would have identified with you, added to this great discussion and maybe avoided the need for an anticipated call-back from a friend before I am fully awake later on today :eek: .

Wow do I identify!

I do not recall having serious suicidal thoughts as a teenager, although once - during what would now be called a "time-out" - I remember trying to get a flimsy plywood door to close on my neck. (I didn't stick with it or try anything different.)

However I cannot look back on my young adult years without seeing that I was either consciously or subconsciously killing myself with booze and sex. I even connected the two, believing that more sex - brought about by more booze - would and even should kill me. As insane as this would sound to someone, other than a survivor perhaps, I used to firmly believe that I deserved AIDS.

This belief spanned the time before I was infected and well past the time afterward.

Any number of contributors to this idea can be listed (the insanity of which I need not spell out):

1) I felt that, as a promiscuous homosexual, "if anyone deserves AIDS I do".
2) My alcohol-suppressed memories of abuse made death seem attractive, or at least unthreatening, e.g. the number of times I drove under the influence feeling oblivious to the consequences (occasionally leading to fantasies of crashing into overpass pillars)
3)I used to have a way of looking at things (denial) that went something like, "It's not that I have fear - just faith that everything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong."

There were a number of years, through to about 1996, when others with HIV had got sicker and sicker and died. Testing positive in 1989, I "accepted" this as my probable fate, to the point where I thought I needed to be comfortable with dying - and was.

What a "mind-fuck" it was, then, to survive into this generation of antiretrovirals, in many cases the only person still alive in old group photos. Survivor guilt. (Surely not a big stretch from "might as well be dead".) Speaking of which...on the one year anniversary of my closest friend's death I PUT MYSELF on suicide watch, checking into a hospital for a day while the doctors tried to figure out which anti-depressant route to take. That was nine-and-a-half years ago. That day I was thinking, wishing even, that I could be with Jim in death.

Not unusual, I know, in the grieving process...but markers along my path. Although I had been occasionally discussing s.a. in therapy for a few years by then, not too effectively, I can see where the abuse - as I have said in other posts here - is at the heart, or the root, of my every dysfunction.

These latter day traumas - last year's mishap with the taxi and the recent gall bladder attack are other straws of the proverbial camel's back whose strength is greater than I would have ever thought possible.

Something, even just a spark of hope sometimes, has kept me going.

There. I have rooted out that self-pity from my earlier post and become a survivor once again.

Peace,
Kenn
 
Maybe it is the language barrier. I am not sure of the difference. Other then maybe being suicidal is to have a plan to actively bring about death, where having a 'death wish' is just being reckless? I am not sure.

Leosha
 
I tried twice to get out of this World, the first time, was probably about six months after the event, I just didn't want to carry on with the mental torture, I very nearly succeeded, don't want to explain the event because of triggers, to people who might read, happened between 11-12 yrs.

Then almost succeeded again aged 14, after my school work was being taken over by the shit, not being able to concentrate, girlfriend trouble, you know the thing, always feeling dirty, not good enough, what if she catches something off me? Does she know I was abused by a man? Another thing that sticks in my mind, was the fact that. "I was still putting this stuff away" How can I hide it from her? should I? could I trust her not to tell?

I was so tempted to make the jump and trust her, to tell someone then may have been the best way to start recovering, but I made the choice, of not telling, and just f**cking up my life, because, I thought? What if she did tell, everyone would tease the shit out of me, and at that time, I would just have been one of the kids you read about, who take their lives, and no-one can understand why?

We see these things regular, kid with everything going for them, commits suicide, thing is though, they don't do it for nothing, they do it because life is so intolerable, but they don't show it, they bottle up the signs, bottling up this stuff, when you're a kid is an immense strain on the mind, it can be so immense, that something inside just says, let go, you just can't handle the hurt, any more.

It can become impossible to live, impossible to imagine your own future, even though you are so young, you don't see a way of your mind surviving, it has taken away so much of your natural childhood instincts, because people taunt you as being "not quite right...different...".

You then have the fight of trying to be "normal", "acting normal", hey don't forget, you're still the kid, the kid who doesn't know what "normal" is!

Copying off kids you think are normal, but hey, I am not you, but I have to live my life, and have to copy you, because I have lost my way, and I just want to be "normal", just like you.

The biggest irony for me, is that other kids where thinking I was normal? I thought? Want to be inside my head for a day, a week, or how about as long as it takes,to say, what the f**k?

But we get this far, don't know how, but we do, we are different, we are more caring, we think more deeply than most, we are concerned, we have a better understanding of what life is about, and how it really "should be".

Or, just maybe, should have been.

ste
 
CFO Dave:
Today I saw my general therapist. She asked what I would do if my prep comes in the room and sits by me. I told her I am not sure what I will do, but I know what I feel like doing if it were now. I feel like punching him to the ground, spitt on his face couple of times, and then kick him on the face until he is unconcious. She got real worried about me. It was right then that I realized she was not the right therapist for me. She is not too clear about what feelings or emotions are. Feelings are just feelings. Sometimes inappropriately we belittle it either by suppression or justification or other mental activities. Sometimes we max-size it by acting it out. Both will retain the problematic(violent) relationship with our past. We will be living rest of our life as we have done so far.
Now 'Death Wish' is just a 'feeling'. If we get scared of this feeling and push it away, it will keep coming back. If we actually trying to committ suicide because of this, it will be a fullscale 'acting out' of the feeling. Even if we survive somehow the feeling of 'Death Wish' will not go away. I know this for a fact. My father used to get angry very easily and he acted out by beating me into submission. After the beating he would calm down and say nice things to me. If acting out his emotion of anger solved his anger problem, he would have never beaten me again. Wrong, it happened at least twenty more times. So there, I am doomed both ways, minimizing or maximizing it. What should I do. According to my real therapist, my CSA therapist that is, any damn thing other than the two will work, among many things that can include writting about it, talking about it or even bit**ing about it.
By the way I am firing my general therapist.
-honest_lion
 
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